Stoke City player makes transfer admission following Premier League interest

Stoke City defender Harry Souttar has indicated that his future lies at the Potters and doesn’t have any immediate interest in making a transfer move to a Premier League club.

The 23-year-old was attracting top flight interest earlier in the season after breaking into the Staffordshire outfit’s first-team in 2020-21, making 38 appearances under Michael O’Neill.

In the lead-up to the January transfer window, a number of clubs were eyeing up the Australia international, who has scored six goals in 10 appearances for his country.

Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa were all said to be watching the towering centre-back but then it all went wrong for Souttar, who suffered a season-ending knee injury whilst on international duty in November.

Souttar was stretchered off against Saudi Arabia with Stoke’s worst fears eventually being confirmed as a ruptured ACL, and ever since he has been on the sidelines the club have been a bit more shaky at the back in general.

With a return date more-than likely to be at the start of the 2022-23 season, Souttar has given the strongest indication yet that he will still be a Stoke player at that time.

“I have a few years left on my contract here so I am going to be here for the foreseeable future, so it is about making sure I don’t put myself at any unnecessary risk by rushing back from this injury,” Souttar told the club’s official media channel (via the Stoke Sentinel).

“I’ve have had a really good chat with the manager, and he knows where I am at, what I am doing and the like but he has also reassured me just to take as much time as I need to.”

The Verdict

It would have definitely been somewhat tempting for Stoke to cash in on Souttar in January if bids arrived, but his injury took it out of