So, apparently another season just ended, but I for one can’t remember any of it.

What I do know is that we’ve lost half a dozen or so loanees, and a significant number of players in the squad have had their contracts expire without renewal.

This leaves Stoke with between 12 and 14 senior players, depending on your definition of senior. A sparsely-populated squad whichever no matter your definitions.

So what’s the plan? Technical Director Ricky Martin said this week “It is well documented that we are looking to execute a significant reset within our squad ahead of the new season”.

Let’s take a look into just how big that reset is, and what kinds of players we might be looking to sign over the Summer.

Please don’t quote this article to me when we sign completely different players and give Bonham the number 1 shirt.

A Fistful Of Players

Looking at the squad we have, and crudely shoving them into single positions in Neil’s (apparently) preferred 433 formation, we see a lot of blank spaces.

Again, taking this all with a pinch of salt, we can pick apart some differences here.

Brown can play either up front or wide right, Campbell can play on either wing, many don’t see Tymon and Brown as starters, there are rumours of both Tymon and Baker leaving the club, and of course there are question marks around what will happen to Edwards, Wright-Phillips, and whether young players like Emre Tezgel might get minutes as backups.

But, ignoring that for a second, we see the big gaps in the squad. At a minimum it appears Stoke need to sign the following:

• A goalkeeper
• 2 full backs
• 2 centre backs
• A sitting midfielder
• 2 central midfielders
• 2 wide players

That makes a minimum (again, in my opinion!) of 10 signings to be made this summer. Using Stoke’s February/March/April style as a blueprint, let’s look into each position to see what kind of players we might be expecting Alex Neil to recruit.

Keep(er) Calm?

Firstly, and very important to Stoke fans given this year’s issues, is a goalkeeper.

22/23 season stats from FBref.com (Opta) put Stoke’s goalkeeping department as the 4th worst in the division for Prevented Goals.

To explain that stat, we need to look again at a metric known as Post-Shot Expected Goals (PSxG, also called Expected Goals on Target xGOT).

PSxG measures the probability of a given shot resulting in a goal, taking into account historical data of power, distance from goal, keeper position, trajectory, and end location of the shot.

This differs from Expected Goals (xG – A Stoke City Explainer) as it is not concerned with the probability of a player scoring a chance, but the probability of an already struck ball ending up as a goal.

As a brief example, Peter Crouch’s wonder volley against Manchester City in 2011/12 was a very low xG chance, as it is very rarely scored, ergo it’s very difficult for a player to score from.

The Post-Shot xG however, was very high, as Crouch struck the volley with power and dip into the top corner of the goal, making it difficult for the keeper to save.

Comparing the number of goals a keeper concedes to the expected amount conceded (our PSxG), we can indicate whether a keeper is under, or over-performing in shot-stopping.

In 2022/23, Stoke had one goalkeeper, of the 3 who played in games, who wasn’t under-performing in this metric.

Matija Šarkić conceded exactly in line with his PSxG, while Bonham and Bursik both underperformed considerably.

We can look at this more intuitively by seeing just how many ‘extra’ goals each keeper conceded through the season compared with PSxG:

Player	Goals Conceded	PSxG Against	Prevented Goals (GA-PSxG)
Jack Bonham	26	21.4	– 4.6
Josef Bursik	22	16.4	– 5.6
Matija Šarkić	6	6	+ 0.0

Unfortunately, it doesn’t read well for Stoke. Over the course of the season they conceded 10 goals more than expected from the shots they faced. This is not a sustainable metric for a promotion chasing side, and can explain some of the differences between xG performance and results in this up-and-down season.

Despite only playing in 7 and a half games, though, Šarkić bucked the trend and seemed to integrate well in the team.

I would not be surprised to see Stoke return to him as the first choice goalkeeper for next season.

The Tymon Our Lives?

As we move into the outfield, though, we come to the more difficult issues.

Personally, I would be happy with the left sided full back remaining as Josh Tymon, but I am also aware that many will see him as surplus.

My own opinion stems from his creative performances (many detailed here in my Josh Tymon piece), and the specifics of how Alex Neil has used one full back (sometimes two) to attack high and wide, with the wide attacker playing in the half-space.

Whilst, this season, those roles were more often on the right hand side in Hoever and Brown, I can see the same applied on the left, with Tymon overlapping and a new left winger playing further inside in attack.

This, however, doesn’t solve the issue when Stoke have only 1 full back.

At time of writing, it appears loanee Dujon Sterling will be signing for Rangers, and Morgan Fox was not offered a contract in the recently-released retained list.

A right back who can sit slightly deeper and defend 1v1, in the mould of Sterling, would be very much on the menu for Stoke in summer, and unless Tom Edwards can be reintegrated into the squad, another 1 or 2 full backs are required alongside a first choice.

He Wil-Mot Be Able To Do It Alone

One possible way to decrease the number of signings needed is to sign versatile players, who can play across a couple of positions.

In the mould of Morgan Fox, it would make sense for Stoke to sign a centre back who can play full back or vice-versa.

But given the system Neil favours, with an aggressive man-to-man marking style behind the front line, often leaving centre backs to keep a striker quiet in 1v1 duels, any new starting centre back has to have some specific traits.

Aggressive, positive, combative defending is a must, as is intelligence in being able to arrive into challenges at the right time. (See my Ben Wilmot piece for examples of a player who does these very well!)

Alongside this, a huge issue in the last half-dozen games of 2022/23 was the scarcity of defensive players able to pick a positive, line-breaking pass. In home games against Wigan, QPR, and Bristol City, this lack of vision in the back line allowed opponents to sit off and cut lanes, preventing Stoke from progressing towards the opposition goal.

Axel Tuanzebe provides an obvious solution to these issues, with strength and intelligence in his duels, and a strong eye for a pass. Wilmot and Tuanzebe were the duo who started the game in Stoke’s most impressive build-up display (in my opinion), in the home game vs Blackburn.

However, we have the one big question mark, his fitness. Having joined on the last day of January, Tuanzebe only started 4 games, playing 329 minutes.

Alex Neil did say in a recent press conference that Stoke cannot be picky with injuries, given the number of signings needed.

“There are going to have to be some educated gambles. There might be a certain quality we can acquire we need to take an element of risk on. If we were to take a hard line on that and say everyone is going to have to have played 90 per cent of games completed or we don’t sign them… I don’t think we’re at that stage yet.”

This indicates something we all knew instinctively anyway, that the market Stoke are shopping in is one of very imperfect players. It does, however, mean there is a definite need for solid backup players.

22/23’s backup of Aden Flint, brought in by Michael O’Neill to cover for Harry Souttar’s recovery, struggled to make an impact, and was dropped pretty quickly into Alex Neil’s reign. Phil Jagielka performed well for a time, but towards the end of the season, his age seemed to catch up to him and the centre-back pairing of him and Morgan Fox was a big problem, both defensively and in build-up.

If Stoke can sign Tuanzebe, it seems there is a fantastic player, but it does mean there is much more importance attached to the signing of further centre backs.

Sit In The Middle With Ben

Holding, sitting, deep-lying, whatever you call the deepest midfielder, it’s been something Stoke fans have wanted for years now. Joe Allen tried hard and was very active, but his technical deficiencies were a root issue in several seasons of struggle for Stoke’s midfield.

Ben Pearson made his way into the squad on loan in January, and appeared to have an immediate impact to the midfield, adding strong tackling, calm passing, and an intelligence that could sniff danger on the break and protect the defence behind him.

As with many, in the last 6 or so games of the season he began to wane, with some silly moments of petulance on the pitch causing problems for the team, and some clumsiness and mistakes ruining generally good performances.

There is a strong case that fatigue and frustration was part of that. Indeed, his defensive strengths may even be worth the problems, and it does seem that Pearson would be possibly the first loanee Alex Neil would like to snap up.

Looking at his overall radar plot it becomes clear where his benefits lie.

As an intelligent defensive midfielder he completes an impressive number of interceptions, and passes impressively into the attacking 3rds of the pitch. The archetypal sitting midfielder.

It also appears that Pearson sits well in Alex Neil’s style of play, as a combative player who is active in his work, he’s strong in man-to-man marking, and in the build-up he played well dropping between the centre backs and allowing others to push forwards.

Despite this, Pearson is not out of contract, and it is not a given that Bournemouth’s demands will be within what appears to be a very tight budget at Stoke this summer.

Despite some changing remarks on the Profit & Sustainability situation during and since January, it seems the sale of Harry Souttar was the major factor allowing Stoke to avoid sanctions this year, and as such it’s not clear how much of that reported £15m fee will be available for transfers.

Should Pearson not be available, I would assume Alex Neil’s search parameters for the recruitment team will be ‘get me someone like Ben Pearson’. He alluded to similar strategies in a recent press conference:

“I will give them a profile of player we would look to recruit and this is what we want them to do and they would go out and try to find the best options. Potentially I would give an example of a player to find someone of that ilk if we can’t get that one in particular.”

A Small Piece of History

Presuming Laurent and Baker stay, it appears the other hole in Stoke’s midfield is the more aggressive number 8, taken up this season by loanee Will Smallbone. He’s incredibly keen to return to Southampton and fight for first team football there, so it seems Stoke will be looking elsewhere for the summer.

Looking at his radar plot, we see that Smallbone contributed very strongly in creating chances, well above average in most of the creative attacking metrics, and also very high in the number of defensive duels won.

Most of his creative work comes from transitional play, particularly recovering loose balls in the opposition half, and as a crucial part of the pressing unit Smallbone dealt with opposition pivot players excellently, to force the ball into areas where Stoke could win it back.

There will be an emphasis on being part of that pressing unit for any potential attacking number 8, and links with players like Preston’s Johnson, an aggressive pressing player, show that.

However, Neil has been keen to mention that there is a need for a variety of players within the squad overall, and the (sadly disappointing) signing of Bersant Celina showed that he is also aware that sometimes teams need to have a player more able to create outside of pressing structures and transition.

Think players like Vrančić and, who created goals from nothing with a keen eye for line-breaking passes and creative vision.

Just Winging It

And as a perfect segue, we move to the wide positions. Tyrese Campbell and Jacob Brown are both able to play wide, and I’d expect Campbell to be the main man on the right of the attacking 3, should Neil stick with a 433.

However, there’s a clear dearth of talent on the left hand side of the front 3, and there are two possible types of player I can see Alex Neil approaching.

Firstly, in the second half of 2022/23, Neil used Campbell as a high and wide left-sided player, stretching the width of the pitch and taking on his man on the outside to produce cutbacks for several Stoke goals in the ‘golden era’ of Feb-April.

He has previously mentioned the need for players who can go 1v1 on the outside and get balls into the box when playing against a low block, a situation in which Stoke have lost several games this season.

Secondly, Neil utilised Jacob Brown on the right wing as more of a half-space player, who used his excellent movement to arrive in the box when the ball was wide left, stayed high for the longer out-ball to use his aerial quality, and dropped in the half space to drag the opposition full back inside and leave space for Hoever to overlap (see Hoever’s goals vs Boro and Blackburn).

With Campbell more naturally available on the right, to fit in that half-space, it would seem reasonable that Neil will be looking for a left-sided player, who can create to the same degree as Campbell.

Which of the two (half-space or chalk-booted) winger types he looks at depends largely on the way he wants the full backs to attack, and whether he sees Campbell as more of a wide left player or a wide right player.

As above, there’s further emphasis on creating a variable attack, where different types of player can be called upon in different games. Given the adaptability of both Campbell and Brown, it will be interesting to see what specific types of wide player Neil aims for, but I am confident that high on that list will be dynamism and the ability to beat a player 1v1.

Back(up) The Strike(r)s

Finally, a position I didn’t list at first, but one I know many Stoke fans are keen to see addressed.

I may well have to put my tin hat on here, but I’m actually not so desperate for us to spend big money on a starting striker. *hides*

I, personally, really like Jacob Brown and the qualities he brings as a central striker. His movement in the box is exceptional, he’s very good in the press, he wins the ball well in the air, and he’s both mobile and confident enough to run at players with it at his feet if needs be. He’s also scored 20 goals in his last 2 league seasons, despite being played both wide right and as a wing back in many of those games.

But, before you scoff and click back onto twitter, hear me out.

Strikers are expensive, good strikers are even more expensive, and good strikers in good form are the most expensive.

Stoke have, at most, a £15m budget this Summer to sign what is likely to be at least 10 players, and at least 2 of those will be wide players, also notoriously expensive.

As a result of that, unless there is a bargain or a loan to be picked up from the recruitment team, I am more than happy for a cheaper, backup striker to come in and challenge Brown for the starting spot, rather than spending 7 figures on a bigger, more expensive name.

Looking at the type of play Neil wants, goals are required from all over the team, and spending a large chunk of the budget solely on a striker, when we have one who scored 13 in a season in a 14th placed side as recently as 2021/22, would be a big risk in my opinion.

The links with Barnes and Pukki appear to mirror this, with neither particularly looking like big money starting strikers, but more likely challengers to fight it out for the starting spot throughout the season, with their strengths utilised in varying scenarios as and when Neil sees fit.

But, this of course all depends on free agents. I don’t purport to be in any way ‘in the know’ about transfers, but as Neil again said recently, the free agents need to be snapped up first, and then you can see where you need to fill gaps.

One thing’s for sure, it’s a long, rumour-filled summer ahead. I reckon the transfer thread on the Oatcake might break 10’000 pages.

Thanks to any and all readers, and please feel free to comment and follow on Twitter at @potterlytics.

Should you wish to donate to help with the running costs of the site, and the data subscriptions we use, please feel free to visit our donations page here. Any and all help is very much appreciated!

George