Yahoo News Stoke City squad as it stands and four holes to fill in starting XI
Stoke City will start the summer transfer window without five of the starting XI which ended the season with three big wins in a row - but the squad rebuild is still nowhere near the same scale in terms of numbers as 12 months ago.
Stoke beat Plymouth Argyle, Southampton and Bristol City with an unchanged side to end the season in their best form of the year, securing their Championship status in the process. They then waved goodbye to Tyrese Campbell, who reached the end of his contract, and loanees Luke McNally, Luke Cundle, Ki-Jana Hoever and Daniel Iversen.
In all, they have cut ties with 13 players who got on the pitch for the first team in the league in 2023/24, racking up 13,677 minutes between them - or about 30 per cent of the total. That would normally be seen as a pretty big hole to fill except it is dwarfed compared to what happened going into that season.
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Stoke used 32 players in 2022/23 but Alex Neil and Ricky Martin oversaw a huge change in personnel and would start pre-season without 19 of those. Those 19 players had collectively played 51 per cent of Stoke's minutes that term.
Still, 13,677 minutes is a lot to fill this time around. But there is hope that Viktor Johansson can play 46 games as number one, which would be a big 4,140-minute dent in that total. The 25-year-old keeper is first through the door and a key deal to get done after Stoke triggered a relegation release clause to sign him from Rotherham.
Of the other lost minutes, McNally (3,202) and Hoever (3,076) were the only players to be involved in more than half of Stoke's campaign. A centre-back is high on Stoke's list of transfer priorities and it remains to be seen if Junior Tchamadeu or Lynden Gooch will be trusted to make the right-back spot their own.
Iversen (1,620) and Travers (1,170) have already been replaced, while the hunt is on for a forward or two who can play more and score more than Campbell (1,200), Sead Haksabanovic (960), Wesley (659) and Dwight Gayle (316). Jacob Brown (90) and Chiquinho (60) got on the pitch too, albeit briefly for different reasons.
Ryan Mmaee (1,513) is clearly at a crossroads and Emre Tezgel and Nathan Lowe will have loan suitors sniffing around hoping to host the next stage of their development.
Enda Stevens (1,542) has signed a new deal and there is hope that he will be available more going forward than he was in his debut campaign at the bet365 Stadium. He made a big impact when available, but an injury sustained on international duty with Republic of Ireland, when it seemed like his body was pushed too hard, and a difficult recovery after a calf problem limited his availability.
Jordan Thompson, who has also extended his contract, and Gooch were cover under Steven Schumacher and Neil, and it will be interesting to see if they devise a succession plan for that position, which Mike Pejic spelled out his hopes about in his latest column at the weekend.
Central midfield is well stocked in terms of numbers but Cundle (987) showed his value in the spring before returning to Wolves. Sol Sidibe will step up to be more involved but it would be no surprise if Lewis Baker and Daniel Johnson were considering their options, with one year left on their contracts and game time limited.
Stoke City squad as it stands
GK: Viktor Johansson, Jack Bonham, Frank Fielding, Scott Morris, Tommy Simkin
RB: Junior Tchamadeu, Lynden Gooch
LB: Enda Stevens, Liam McCarron
CB: Michael Rose, Ben Wilmot, David Okagbue, Matty Baker
CM: Wouter Burger, Josh Laurent, Jordan Thompson, Lewis Baker, Ben Pearson, Daniel Johnson, Sol Sidibe
RW: Million Manhoef, Mehdi Leris
LW: Bae Junho, Andre Vidigal, Nikola Jojic
CF: Ryan Mmaee, Niall Ennis, Nathan Lowe, Emre Tezgel
