Stoke City have finished pre-season programme with home match against Everton
Alex Neil insists his Stoke City summer transfer business is not finished yet – and he hopes to get more signings over the line before next weekend’s Championship opener.
Neil has already brought in 10 new players, including six who started the final friendly of pre-season against Everton, and has Josh Onomah on trial. There have been strong links with Colchester right-back Junior Tchamadeu and Neil isn’t ruling out bringing in another forward player too.
Asked if there were more signings still to come, he said, succinctly: “Yes.”
“Hopefully,” he added about if they would get done before the curtain raiser against Rotherham. Deadline day is not until September 1.
It has been an incredible window just in terms of numbers and the amount of change means Stoke are in contention to field more debutants than any game since 1919.
Neil admits he has not had a pre-season like it, saying: “Never. I don’t think any club is going to find itself in this position too often but we are in a unique situation. We needed a reset, this is an opportunity to reset and we’ve got to be bold. We’ve got to commit to it and make sure we get up and running as quickly as we can.
“I’ve said on a couple of occasions that we need a bit of patience particularly with the foreign lads because it’s a new culture, a new environment, it’s a new level of football, some are coming away from family for the first time. We just need to be patient with the boys and allow them to bed themselves in let them show us what they can do.”
Leave a Reply