Stoke City transfer talks continue as gossip debunked

For the upcoming season, Stoke City has acquired two new players to their roster, and negotiations are still in progress to add more.

The identities of the transfer targets Stoke City is still in negotiations with to complement Ben Gibson and Viktor Johansson will probably surprise you.

In addition to appointing Chris Cohen of Lincoln as the new assistant head coach and Lee Darnbrough of Hull as director of recruitment, Stoke moved fast to bring in their first two summer additions.

There has been a lot of conjecture on the potential next in line, but most, if not all, of the linkages that have been made public thus far are empty. However, rumors of interest in Johansson and Gibson surfaced before to their signing, and it’s always exciting to speculate about where Jon Walters and Steven Schumacher may play next in the summer.

There are some rumours that have been persistent, like interest in left-back Sam McCallum, who is leaving Norwich at the end of his contract. He is a free agent in a position where there is scope for Stoke to add, having already signed Enda Stevens to an extended deal, but there haven’t been any offers, let alone any rejection or a medical up to this point. Still, who knows what might happen over the next couple of months.

Darnbrough had a close relationship with Tan Kesler, the influential vice-chairman at Hull, and they had a reputation among agents for walking away from deals if they were leaked. It would be no surprise if Stoke had the same tactic.

What is public knowledge is that Stoke want to bring down the size of their senior squad to about 22 senior players, making space for emerging talent such as Sol Sidibe, Jaden Dixon, Freddie Anderson and Emre Tezgel, who will hopefully be nudging nearer to the first team over the next year to 18 months.

So there will likely have to be exits depending on how much they want to freshen things up. And it is unlikely, for instance, that they will want to carry seven central midfielders through the season.

The big vacancy remains at centre-forward, where Tezgel and Nathan Lowe are coming through but Niall Ennis and Ryan Mmaee weren’t able to cement their claims for a regular starting shirt last term while Tyrese Campbell is leaving.

There are cases to prove or decisions to be made about other players who couldn’t get the minutes they wanted for whatever reason, from Liam McCarron – who wasn’t registered in the squad last season – to Andre Vidigal, who couldn’t maintain his encouraging early scoring form after joining last summer.