I Love Stoke City

There are media reports that former Liverpool striker Peter Crouch may make a move to Swansea City in the coming days.

Indeed the Welsh side is currently short on strikers and may be in the market for at least two attacking reinforcements. Several attacking players are going to leave Swansea in the summer, and the club is actively looking for a replacement. BatetimbiGomis is said to be going out on a season loan to French side Marseille while Alberto Paloschi and Eder are both going to be sold.

It is believed that Swansea has made inquiries for Peter Crouch, and it is believed that they are preparing a £3 million bid for the player. Peter Crouch has enjoyed a poor season with Stoke City last term and might be favorable to a transfer. Indeed the tall striker has been quite frustrated with his lack of playing time and will feel that a move to Swansea may revive his career.

It is also reported that Swansea City might also make a move for Leicester City’s striker Leonardo Ulloa. The latter had risen to prominence last term when he helped Leicester City end up the season as champion. However, with the departure of Kante and potential departure of Mahrez, it is very unlikely that Claudio Ranieri will allow Leonardo Ulloa to leave the team.

Leonardo Ulloa has stated that he is happy to remain with Leicester City and want to be part of the team next season. Indeed Leicester City is going to play in the Champions League next season, and it is very hard to imagine that Leonardo Ulloa will want to forego this possibility and play with Swansea.

However, time is running out for Swansea City, and they might want to finalize the Crouch deal as soon as possible.

Stoke City’s Geoff Cameron claims that he is more worried about keeping his place in the first team of the Premier League outfit for the 2016-17 campaign since he expects the club to have a busy transfer window.

There have already been reports that manager Mark Hughes has been looking at several players who are unable to get game time at top clubs like Barcelona. Christian Tello is one of the names being linked with a move to Stoke City. A transfer will not be beyond the possibility since Stoke City already have a former Barcelona player in the squad – Bojan Krkic.

Cameron is currently with Uruguay at the centenary edition of the Copa America. Doing well in this tournament will be a major boost for Cameron’s hopes of getting the attention from Hughes. The 30-year-old is a versatile player in the Stoke City dressing room. For the first time, he has admitted that his versatility may be starting to hurt his first-team opportunities. Stoke have been quietly improving the squad since the arrival of Hughes. The revamp is expected to continue even though the club come on the back of an impressive campaign in which theyonce again finished in the top half.

It is a major achievement for a club who were once known for their long ball style game.“The main thing for me is to get a shirt. As long as I’m playing I’m happy so we’ll see. I imagine Mark Hughes will be looking to strengthen the group. It’s one of those normal things but a lot of my focus at the moment is on the national team.The main thing for us is to get out of the group and then anything is possible,”said Cameron, whose United States national team is one of the favourites to win the tournament.

Mark Hughes has confirmed that Stoke City will be ambitious in the summer when it comes to the signings.

It has been speculated that Stoke City will be signing a number of players like Nathan Redmond and Saido Berahino. Players such as these are expected to cost in excess of £ 10 million quite easily. However, Stoke City have been on a spending spree in the last few summers. The club is clearly determined to become an established Premier League outfit and they see the presence of quality name as a key.

After having come close to Europa League qualification once again, Stoke will sound like an attractive destination for players across Europe. The presence ofplayers like Bojan Krkic will only add to the popularity. Hughes says that he has identified several targets who are ready to join the club. After having just seen Leicester City win the league title in surprising circumstances, Stoke City will feel that they can realistically aim for European qualification on a regular basis if they sign quality players in the summer. The club may have finished ninth in the table, but they were ahead of clubs like Chelsea and Everton. It is understood that Stoke have made a new enquiry for West Brom forwardBerahino.

“We are trying to progress both on and off the pitch and I think that is there for everybody to see.We have made signings of real intent and that shows we are regarded as a progressive and ambitious club now.Everything is growing and getting better and this is a great club to be a part of at the moment,” said Hughes, who will also have to concentrate on retaining the existing stars like Arnautovic. The winger has only one year left on his deal and is widely expected to leave.

Mark Hughes saw his team collapse remarkably in the recent meeting with Liverpool, which ended as a 4-1 loss for his team. Stoke City were coming into the game with aspirations of a European finish.

The club’s chairman Peter Coates recently claimed that qualifying for Europe regularly will be a sign of improvement for Stoke, who were a regular Championship club not too long ago. Any hope of featuring in the Europa League for only the second season in the club’s history may have come to an end after this loss against Liverpool at Anfield.

Stoke were feeling confident prior to the match since there was a belief that Liverpool will be having their entire attention on the midweek clash with Borussia Dortmund. The Merseyside outfit drew 1-1 with the German club in the first leg of the Europa League match. The return leg will be at Anfield and Jurgen Klopp was expected to rest some of his big-name players in anticipation of this game. This was not the case, as the likes of Daniel Sturridge, James Milner, and Roberto Firmino all played against Stoke. Sturridge scored a goal in the 32nd minute and stayed on the pitch for the full 90 minutes.

Hughes was feeling confident after going into halftime at 2-1, but conceding two goals in the second half made the scoreline flattering for Liverpool. “I thought first half we acquitted ourselves really well – we had a decent amount of control in the game.We feel 4-1 is a little bit harsh on us, especially after what we did in the first half, but you’ve got to have a full 90 minute performance and we didn’t have that today.We were not as resolute as normal. We had some had good moments, and at half-time we felt we were very much in the game,” said Hughes.

The Premier League and just about every top European league are reaching their final stages and every single point that any club is able to secure from this point on can play a huge role in what spot they are going to finish in their respective league

Stoke City is hoping to seal a Europa League spot that would allow them to compete in the European competition for the upcoming season but a recent string of injuries might hamper their chances of making it happen.

The latest player of Stoke City that fell victim to injury was Jack Butland as he was playing a friendly match for England against Germany on March 27 and during this game, Butland picked up an injury which forced him to leave the pitch at the 46th minute as he had to be replaced by Fraser Forster.

Jack Butland has already taken medical tests and scans, the results of these tests revealed that the English goal-keeper is going to be out of action for around 3 months and this is a huge blow not only for the England national football team but also for Stoke City.

At the young age of 23, Butland has managed to become the undisputed goal-keeper of Stoke City but now Mark Hughes will have to use another shot-stopper as this injury is expected to keep the young player out of the pitch for the remainder of the season.

Jon Walters, Ryan Shawcross, Erik Pieters, XherdanShaqiri, Glen Johnson and Marc Wilson are the other players of Stoke City who have recently been suffering with injuries and this is a huge hit for Mark Hughes who might not be able to achieve his goal of landing a top 5 spot in the Premier League.

For the past few weeks and even months, Chelsea has been in search of a manager who can take charge of the main team after the current season reaches it’s end. Guus Hiddink is the interim coach but the Dutch manager will be making his way out of Stamford Bridge in a few months’ time.

Diego Simeone, Massimiliano Allegri, Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho are some of the high profile managers who have been linked with taking charge of Chelsea but there is someone else who isn’t so well known as those previously mentioned who was being taken into consideration and it’s Stoke City’s Mark Hughes.

Mark Hughes has enjoyed success with Stoke City as he led the team to the semi-finals of the Capital One Cup as well as changing the playing style of the Premier League club and these were a few of the main reasons of why Hughes was reportedly being taken into consideration as a possible manager of Chelsea.

Massimiliano Allegri of Juventus has impressed the managerial staff of Chelsea and the Italian manager is one of the coaches that the Premier League has consistently been attempting to lure in but the Italian manager has refused the invitation and this has forced Chelsea on having to search around for other managers and it’s rumored that Diego Simeone is the one that has accepted the challenge but Mark Hughes has been in the watch list of Chelsea for the past few weeks.

Mark Hughes has recently decided to extend his managerial stay with Stoke City until 2019 as he will continue to be manager of Stoke City for the next few years but there is a high chance that he becomes the next coach of a top club as he has already been attracting the attention of the Premier League side Chelsea, who have been struggling so much in this season and are in need of someone who can spark them back to life.

Mark Hughes says that he is taking the positives after his Stoke City only narrowly were defeated by Liverpool in the League Cup semi-final on Tuesday night.

This was a major opportunity for Stoke to display their improvement under the former Blackburn manager. They came close to winning the FA Cup recently. However, adding a trophy for the first time under Hughes will be a memorable achievement. It has been made difficult by the first leg loss against Liverpool. Despite having some good opportunities to score in the 90 minutes, the game finished as a 1-0 loss for the underdogs.

Stoke City are usually strong at home and Hughes will be disappointed not to take advantage of the first leg. The return leg will be at Anfield where Stoke need to produce a great performance in order to reach the final. The League Cup is taken more seriously by teams lower in the league table since it offers them a great opportunity to win a major trophy. Jordon Ibe’s goal in the 37th minute was enough to separate the two teams. However, Liverpool are likely to be without Dejan Lovren and Philippe Coutinho for the return leg after the duo suffered hamstring injuries.

They both are important players and their absence will be felt in the second leg.”In the first half we found it difficult to play our game. Second half they had the benefit of the goal, so they could play on the counter attack, get people behind the ball and make it difficult for us.But we dominated the second half, we just needed that break and the ball to run for us. We had a couple of chances that on another day might have fallen for us but we are still very much in the tie. We are not too despondent,” Hughes told Sky Sports.

Ronald Koeman reckons Chelsea’s style of play is responsible for the results that they have fetched so far.

Chelsea’s numbers of late have been extraordinarily disappointing and there’s been huge pressure on charismatic Mourinho,
Although he has been given the job security by the bosses at Stamford Bridge, but, a lot is at stake for him.
In the views of Koeman, who is in charge of Southampton FC at the moment, Mourinho is ultra negative when it comes to tactics and that is harming Chelsea.

According to the Dutchman, if Mourinho wants to get the Blues back to winning ways, he should have a look at the other team, the teams like Arsenal, the kind of attacking Football that they are playing.

Koeman was all praise for the Gunners for their smashing win over the Red Devils recently.

Yesterday evening, Koeman was quoted as saying, “Chelsea intends to be on the defence all the time. Even when they take a lead, their approach remains the same. You would never see them trying to put the opposition under real pressure.”

“The Gunners, on the other hand, can absolutely demolish you. What they did to United was brilliant. They attacked in full flow. That was one of the best performances I have seen this season. Chelsea doesn’t operate that way. Playing against them, you always have the opportunity to make a comeback because they are not really attacking you.”

Koeman’s team itself has not played the best of Football in the ongoing season, but, they have done decently enough to be in top 10. They are positioned 8th right now with 12 points.

Southampton is scheduled to take on Leicester City next. That game will be played after the international break on 17th of October.

Stoke City has a tough schedule in their start of this new Premier League season as they had to face off with Liverpool and eventually lost 0-1.

The next match of Stoke City is scheduled to take place on August 15 as they face off with another difficult in White Hart Lane with Tottenham Hotspurs.

2 successive difficult opponents might not be the best way for a club to start a new season but not everything is negative for Stoke City as the English side has made a huge splash in the summer transfer window after offloading €12 million in signing Xherdan Shaqiri from Inter Milan and this recent arrival is expected to push Stoke City to new heights.

Shaqiri penned a 5 year long contract with Stoke City as he completed all of his medical tests and is an official player of the Premier League side.

After the deal was completed, Mark Hughes had a few things to say concerning his latest signing as the Welsh manager said: “He’s a dynamic and explosive player who will bring something different to the group and at the age of 23 he still has a great deal of potential. In the chats I’ve had with him, it’s obvious that he’s excited about playing in the Premier League and showing what he’s capable of.”

Xherdan Shaqiri is the 9th summer signing of Stoke City as the English club has already signed: Joselu, Glen Johnson, Jakob Haugaard, Mohamed El Ouriachi, Daniel Bachmann, Marco van Ginkel, Shay Givven and Ibrahim Afellay.

9th place was the position that Stoke City secured in the previous season of the Premier League but with all of these new additions, they are expected to land a higher position in the top tier English League and now it’s the task of Mark Hughes to make it happen.

Stoke City managed one of the best results in their history after a 6-1 thrashing of Liverpool at the Britannia stadium.

This was the final match of the season and it meant little to the two teams. While Stoke had already achieved records point tally in a Premier League season, Liverpool had just failed to qualify for the top four after a series of poor form. Stoke managed to take full advantage of the poor form after crashing a poor Liverpool 6-1 with five goals coming in the first half alone. Three of the goals came in just eight minutes, as he helped himself to a hat-trick.

Opposition manager Brendan Rodgers has come under fire recently for his failure to lead Liverpool back into the Champions League. After a second place finish last season, Liverpool were expected to push on and possibly win the title. Yet, they have slipped into sixth place and will now have to hope that Arsenal win the FA Cup so as to avoid further rounds of Europa League qualification. This defeat means that Liverpool have won only one out of the last five matches. They will hope for a better start to the 2015/16 season. Hughes stated that this was the perfect end to the campaign.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better finish to a really great season.The level of performance in that first 45 minutes was exceptional and I don’t think it reflects badly on Liverpool. I think most teams would have struggled to cope with the quality and intensity of our play.It is a great performance against a very good team with great individual talents, and we have been able to get the level of performance that I think a lot of people sensed we were capable of,” said the Stoke manager.