There is no one reason for Stoke City’s miserable decline, but the list of club-contracted players who have watched their relegation fight from afar is at least a strong place to start.
Giannelli Imbula, the club’s record signing, was on loan at Lecce until finally being released in February. Benik Afobe and Ryan Woods, signed for a combined £18million last season, are at Bristol City and Millwall. Kevin Wimmer is in Belgium, Peter Etebo in Spain and Badou Ndiaye in Turkey.
That Staffordshire diaspora originally cost Stoke more than £35m in transfer fees alone.
Stoke entered the Championship’s restart looking nervously over their shoulders and concern has become panic. Wigan, Barnsley, Luton and Huddersfield all rank in the division’s top 10 over the last six matches.
Ninth in English football’s ladder in 2016, then 13th, 19th, 36th and now 41st. This club is only going one way.
On paper, Stoke have one of the best squads in the Championship. They were preseason favourites for promotion last season and fifth favourites a year ago.
Jack Butland, Sam Vokes, James Chester, Ryan Shawcross, Stephen Ward and Bruno Martins Indi are all senior internationals, and are supplemented by potentially high-end Championship players: Sam Clucas, Tom Ince and Lee Gregory. But like so much at Stoke City, scratch away the thin veneer of respectability to reveal the cracks.
The age of the squad is a problem. Of the nine players with 18 or more starts this season, Butland is the youngest at 27.
A lack of pace in attacking areas makes them relatively one-dimensional, and Gregory has not replicated his Millwall form. Their highest-scoring striker – Tyrese Campbell – has started 15 league games.
But the on-field problems have shifted. In 2018-19, Stoke had a better defensive record than champions Norwich and three of the four play-off sides, but were the third lowest scorers in the league.
Now nine teams have fewer goals scored, but only six sides have conceded more.
Even the goalscoring improvement comes with a caveat: Stoke have scored 28 per cent of their league goals in three matches.
The only permanence lies in their away record – nine league wins in the last three years. No wonder the club covers the cost for away coach travel. Perhaps they should start paying supporters?
Everything Stoke were good at has got worse, and nothing is filling the void adequately. Several supporters consulted for this column all made roughly the same damning accusation: the players who are good enough don’t care enough; the players who care enough aren’t good enough.
To apportion blame for that, look further up the food chain. CEO Tony Scholes sanctioned expensive deals for unproven players, refused to countenance selling valuable assets (Shawcross, Butland, Crouch, Mame Biram Diouf) until it was too late and has been accused by supporters of going silent when the emergency situation demanded vocal leadership.
Stoke spent almost £60m on transfer fees last season and have one of the highest wage bills in the Championship.
Scholes has also been responsible for a series of managerial mistakes. He kept faith in Mark Hughes for too long despite a run of seven league wins in 33 matches and then replaced him with the underwhelming Paul Lambert to oversee relegation. He then allowed Gary Rowett to spend freely to give long contracts to expensive new signings before sacking him after eight months.
Nathan Jones won just six of his 38 matches before being sacked. Michael O’Neill has pedigree, but the former Northern Ireland manager’s task is to change the mood and culture at a club that has allowed dry rot to set in. If his arrival caused an upturn in form, there are now signs that the club is dragging him down quicker than he can drag them up.
Stoke are a wealthy club by EFL standards. Bet365 chief executive Denise Coates took home the highest annual salary in Britain last year, and the family entered the top 20 on the Sunday Times’ rich list with an estimated wealth of £6.9bn. But individual wealth is not always a powerful weapon in the Championship. There are deep concerns amongst supporters about looming FFP limitations that will only be partly mitigated by a potential temporary Covid-19 suspension.
Most importantly, the club’s hierarchy have allowed an obvious identity on the pitch and off it to be swept away like dust in the wind. Stoke only flourished in the Premier League because of the watertight bond between all aspects of the club. Watch them during the years of Pulisball, even with faces, kits and stadium blurred out, and Stoke were one of the easiest teams to identify. They became disliked as a badge of honour, possessing a spirit, siege mentality and pragmatism that stood for something and provided a tangible value.
As soon as the cracks appeared and were not addressed, rot set in. They may be able to avoid relegation over the next month (and Wigan entering administration helps), but it’s a thin silver lining.
Progress is never self-sustaining; it lasts only for as long as it is cherished and nurtured. Let it slip and it will quickly disappear from view. If Stoke City now stand for anything at all, it is as a warning beacon of the dangers of drifting towards the rocks.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3eXTPaZ
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