£90m spent, 60 transfers and why Mark Robins isn’t only answer to huge Stoke City issue
£90m spent, 60 transfers and why Mark Robins isn’t only answer to huge Stoke City issue
Stoke City have made a massive appointment already this year by bringing in Mark Robins but the manager is just one big part of the puzzle that the club has to get right.
The departure of Lee Darnbrough as head of recruitment just one week after the end of the January transfer window meant easy conclusions could be drawn about the reasons behind the decision.
It was always going to be a difficult month for Stoke because of Financial Fair Play constraints plus losing top scorer Tom Cannon but it was still on the disappointing side of the spectrum. In the end they made two loan signings – Ali Al-Hamadi and Josh Wilson-Esbrand, who had worked previously with Robins at Coventry. Lewis Baker, Nathan Lowe and Ryan Mmaee returned from loans away as well.
Robins was always adamant that it was better to work with what he had, and particularly with Stoke’s own players, rather than make a signing for the sake of it that wasn’t going to improve the starting XI. Better to give game time to Lowe in the Championship, for example, than borrow a kid to develop from a Premier League team.
Bristol City weren’t keen to sell Mark Sykes at a price Stoke were willing to pay and Stoke pulled out of a move for Hibs winger Elie Youan, who they had sniffed around 12 months previously. There was potential for a sixth loan but the cons outweighed the pros. For whatever reason, Stoke couldn’t find the right, affordable player.
Darnbrough had only been at Stoke for eight months but now he’s gone. A specialist recruitment agency is expected to be tasked with finding the right person to come in and report to Jon Walters and John Coates, building a better squad for Robins, who spoke on Friday about the importance of everyone being aligned.
Robins can talk from experience. Largely working with head of recruitment Chris Badlan and chief executive Dave Boddy, he managed to find undisputed gems in the transfer market at Coventry like Viktor Gyokeres and Gus Hamer, Callum O’Hare and Ben Sheaf, but it was probably just as important to get it consistently right behind those shining examples.
Coventry reporter Andy Turner said: “There’s left-back Jake Bidwell, a 6-7/10 every week, no-nonsense, experienced and no frills defender who is great in the dressing room. He joined from Swansea. Matty Godden from Peterborough was his ‘talisman’ striker before Gyokeres took off, a leader and regular goal scorer that was instrumental in promotion from League One to the Championship.
“Kyle McFadzean and Jamie Allen were drafted in from Burton in 2019. Centre-back McFadzean was the glue that held an exciting young back three together with loans Luke McNally and Callum Doyle either side in the 2023 play-off final campaign. He spent five years at the club.
“Midfielder Allen is still at the club and just enjoyed a resurgence under Lampard with a string of influential games – tactically astute and non-stop running and energy. The 30-year-old is a manager’s dream and proper squad player. He doesn’t always get the credit he deserves but been an important cog in City’s success over the last six years.”
Those kinds of signings are something that Stoke have not got right often enough since perhaps as far back as 2015, when the goalkeeping department morphed from Begovic-Sorensen-Butland to Butland-Haugaard-Given and Steven Nzonzi wasn’t properly replaced. That’s not to say there weren’t players who came in and did well and Xherdan Shaqiri was a lot of fun.
But we can look back since relegation and Stoke have made 60 permanent signings while Mark Cartwright, Phil Chapple, Alex Aldridge, Jared Dublin and Darnbrough have led the transfer department, spending about £90 million in total – although £64m of that went in 2018 while Gary Rowett and Nathan Jones were in the dug out and £18m went in 2023/24 when Alex Neil and Ricky Martin oversaw a ‘great reset’.
There aren’t many of those 60 would go down as undisputed gems. How many would more than 50 per cent of Stoke supporters agree was a great signing? Viktor Johansson for sure, then maybe Jacob Brown, who would probably say that he had plenty of detractors; Steven Fletcher, if only he had been 10 years younger; and maybe Million Manhoef, Wouter Burger and Bae Junho, who have copped plenty of criticism this season.
That’s probably harsh on plenty of players. A total of 29 didn’t cost a fee while Tatsuki Seko and Jordan Thompson were cheap as chips. Junior Tchamadeu and Bosun Lawal were signed as long-term projects but so were Alfie Doughty and Nikola Jojic, the latter of which looks an even more unfathomable deal 18 months on.
Dublin was clearly a walking football database but seemed to struggle with the alignment part. Chapple had been Jones’s man but only arrived shortly before Jones left. Aldridge was apparently a lovely fella but needed more courage in his conviction.
Cartwright, who had been in the job when Stoke signed Marc Muniesa, Bojan and Marko Arnautovic, couldn’t survive the expensive baggage of Kevin Wimmer, Moritz Bauer, Badou Ndiaye and Giannelli Imbula, Saido Berahino, no matter how much responsibility he had in those deals.
Dublin is now at Hull, Chapple is chief scout for Jones’s Charlton Athletic, Aldridge is at Colorado Rapids via a return to Millwall and Cartwright is sporting director at Huddersfield Town.
The Stoke gig is a brilliant one for the right person; a chairman who will bankroll business as long as you can work within FFP parameters, a sporting director who will give you all the support possible and a manager who knows exactly what he wants.
This summer will be another big, important one. Stoke will lose loanees Al-Hamadi, Lewis Koumas, Andrew Moran, Ashley Phillips and Wilson-Esbrand while another seven of the senior squad are out of contract.
That leaves a skeleton group of Viktor Johansson, Eric Bocat, Ben Wilmot, Wouter Burger, Ben Pearson, Tatsuki Seko, Andre Vidigal, Sam Gallagher, Million Manhoef and Ryan Mmaee to build on, plus Bae Junho, Tchamadeu and Lawal, who are now 21 and have to take a place in the 25-man party next term.
There could even be some wheeling and dealing too and a chance to reinvest. Burger will no doubt have interest and if scouts aren’t looking at Johansson it would be astonishing.
There’s a chance to really make a difference.
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