Stoke City fan pundit gives his verdict on whether striker has a future with the club beyond 21/22

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Josh Maja joined Stoke City on loan from Bordeaux at the end of January for the remainder of the season. 

He scored on his debut for the club in a 2-0 win against Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup.

Since then, he has made 13 appearances for his side scoring two goals.

Maja hasn’t been poor since coming in at Stoke but there’s questions over whether he is filling in a gap that Michael O’Neil needs filling in.

We asked FLW’s Stoke City fan pundit Ben if he thinks the 23-year-old has done enough to earn a permanent deal at the club: “For me I’ve not questioned Josh Maja’s work rate or desire. I think he’s working hard in Michael O’Neil’s press up front. He is linking up with the play very well, he’s bringing others into play, his hold up play for a guy of his apparent size is very good.

“But he [O’Neil] brought him in to be a poacher and he’s only scored a couple of goals for us, I think only one in the league and in the last game especially he missed two golden chances exactly the same as well. We don’t bring him in to hold up play, we brought him in to score goals and he’s not done that for us so far.

“I think Stoke haven’t played well as a whole and we can get more out of Josh Maja and he’s still a young player too. The question is, is he worth the risk of a two to three million pound transfer fee? I’d say he probably is if it was me but I completely see why others would try their hand at somebody else.”

The Verdict:

As mentioned, Maja has not done a bad job at all since coming in at Stoke City but it doesn’t