Yahoo News 24 days that will shape Stoke City for at least the next two years
It is uplifting to listen to Jon Walters spell out the long-term ambitions at Stoke City but still he kept making the same point: the immediate focus has to be to ensure safety in the Championship this season.
There are five matches left for Stoke to draw an end to a turbulent campaign. They fell into the relegation zone in late February but have picked up 11 points over the next seven matches since then, the kind of rate that would get them to 72 points if they could maintain the same form over 46 games. If they can replicate it for just five more matches they would get to 54 points.
It is still too close for comfort down at the wrong end of the division but that could all change over the next few days. The five points that separate nine teams from 15th to 23rd still seems so close with five matches to play but five points will seem like a chasm by this stage next week when there are only three games left.
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Stoke head into their final mid-week fixture of the campaign tomorrow at Swansea, live on Sky Sports. A win for either side will be a huge step towards survival. A draw would keep pulses racing, defeat would require a big intake of breath. It'll be huge again at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
The bookies and the boffins are confident that Steven Schumacher's squad can hold their nerve. There are seven clubs who are shorter odds to fill the two spaces next to Rotherham below the dotted line. The latest expected final table from Opta analysts has Stoke's most likely end position as 16th or 17th - but the spread of potential outcomes is still quite wide. There's a 50 per cent chance they will finish 17th or higher, a 93.5 per cent chance they will finish 21st or higher, a 6.5 per cent chance that they'll be dragged into doom.
But it is what really happens in the 24 days from Wednesday, April 10 to Saturday, May 4 that will shape the club for at least the next two years. It took Stoke four seasons to scramble out of the third tier the last time they fell in and attendances fell to as low as 6,569 at one point. You can get almost everything right and pick up 90 points and still not be guaranteed promotion.
It is already a long way to get to where Walters has in mind for Stoke and it is massive to start that next chapter in the Championship. How are your nerves?
Stoke City remaining fixtures
Wednesday, April 10: Swansea (away)
Saturday, April 13: Sheffield Wednesday (away)
Saturday, April 20: Plymouth Argyle (home)
Saturday, April 27: Southampton (away)
Saturday, May 4: Bristol City (home)
