I Love Stoke City

Peter Coates is the chairman of Stoke City; he is one the main figures responsible in offloading cash whenever it may be needed in order to sign players that can reinforce the Premier League side Stoke City.

The manager of the English club, Mark Hughes has voiced his support and confidence towards Peter Coates and his spending power.

During the first season of Mark Hughes in charge of Stoke City, he managed to push the team to the 9th spot of the Premier League and Hughes wants to continue finishing the season in one of those top spots but the coach believes that in order for that to happen a few signings might need to be made.

Stoke City’s Mark Hughes displayed the confidence that he has concerning Peter Coates and his ability to sign high quality players that can help the team continue finishing in the top 10 spots of the Premier League as the manager told reporters.

“We have done some good deals and done some good business and bought good players. We are pleased with that but that can’t be a strategy moving forward. We will have to reinvest significantly in the team” he told this source.

“If we want to continue to get better and be a consistently successful side in the Premier League which for us equates to top-10 finishes every year – then we will have to add more quality and that costs money. We understand that and the Coates family understands that.”

“I am very comfortable and very confident that if we have the opportunity to bring a really top player here that costs a significant amount, the means to do so will be made available.”

Mark Hughes has already said that finishing in the top 10 spots of the Premier League is his priority and that is what he will focus on doing for the remainder of the English League which is a possible thing to accomplish but Stoke City will have to claim a few more victories in their remaining matches of the season.

Stoke City last broke near transfer record in 2011 after bringing striker Peter Crouch from Tottenham for around £ 12 million.

Since then, the investment at the club has been steady but nowhere near significant enough to break the dominance of the top six or seven clubs. Mark Hughes has managed to keep the club afloat in the Premier League in a transitional campaign after the departure of Tony Pulis. He has managed to mix the physical style of football from Pulis to his attractive style from the Blackburn days. This has continued to keep the club in the top 10 of the table even with just one win in the last five.

Determined to improve on this performance, Hughes says that he is expecting to spend a significant amount of his transfer budget on new players in the coming summer transfer window. Stoke are expected to provide the former Manchester City and QPR manager with significant funds. In the past, the spending of the former Chelsea striker has been criticised and it remains to be seen if Stoke will allow him to break the club’s transfer record. Crouch and several other older players may be on their way out to make way for the new signings.

“We have ideas that are possible and realistic and will pursue them, but there’s nothing to report at this time. It’s quite tentative discussions at the moment.We are probably the lowest spenders in the Premier League, certainly in the windows I’ve been involved in.We have done some good deals and brought some good players in. But that cannot be the strategy moving forward. At some point we will have to invest significantly in the team.We will try to strengthen in the summer, that’s a given,” said the Stoke City manager.

During the last season of Mark Hughes as the coach of Queens Park Rangers, the Welshman made a number of high profile signings including: Jose Bosingwa, Julio Cesar, Esteban Granero, Kieron Dyer, Robert Green, Ji-Sung Park, Fabio and Andrew Johnson just to name a few of the players that were signed by Mark Hughes as the coach was hoping to see Queens Park Rangers climb a few spots in the Premier League but it never happened as the club continued sustaining defeats and this led to Mark Hughes being sacked.

The reputation of Hughes took a huge blow but nonetheless, he was later appointed as the head coach of Stoke City and things are going much better for him. During the season of 2013-14, Stoke City finished in the 9th spot which was the best location that the club has finished in the Premier League since 1974.

Stoke City is currently located in the middle section of the English League and Hughes has already stated that he is confident that his team can finish in the top 10 spots and the Welsh coach also went on saying that he is feeling confident about how things are going on in the club and contract negotiations are progressing well.

Mark Hughes announced his joy in coaching Stoke City as he told reporters: ‘’This is a wonderful club and one that matches the ambitions of myself. There’s nothing I can think of to get in the way of that.This is a very good club. I’m happy with how it’s gone and appreciative of the opportunity to be manager of Stoke City.’’

When Hughes was asked about a contract extension with Stoke City, he replied by saying: ‘’It’s not signed yet but hopefully it’s dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s.”It’s progressing well; there’s will on both sides to get it done. It’s a club that’s still going places and we’ve got a lot to achieve here. The next few years can be really exciting.”

Former England international Peter Crouch has been enjoying a new lease of life in the Premier League this season.

His career in the top division of English football appeared to be over after he did not feature a much for Stoke City in the first few weeks of the season. Mark Hughes, though, has relied heavily upon Crouch during the busy Christmas period and he has been rewarded by the former Liverpool striker.

Crouch has been responsible for important victories over the likes of Arsenal, while his performances have also helped Stoke get valuable points against Manchester United.

Despite scoring two goals and creating one more since the turn of December, Crouch’s future continues to be under doubt given that his contract expires in the summer. At 33 years of age, it is looking highly unlikely that Premier League clubs will be interested in him anymore. It remains to be seen even if Stoke would offer him an extension, but Hughes has reiterated that the former England star remains an integral part of the club’s plans going forward. Despite not being as one of the finest as strikers for England in his generation, Crouch has an impressive scoring record of 22 goals in 42 international matches.

“There’s nothing in it. People are adding two and two together and making five.He’s a big part of what we’re doing here. His future is with us. You saw by his performance he wasn’t bothered by any speculation.We have had Bojan checked. He has a slight tear, grade one. It can be 10 days out or a couple of weeks. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.We asked the Senegal FA about Diouf. They are within their rights to call him up on what I think is 5 January,” said Hughes about Crouch and other important names at Stoke.

BojanKrkic made a name for himself during his time playing in youth academy of Barcelona and it’s believes that the Spanish forward managed to score over 900 goals before being 17 years of age.

This early promise allowed him on signing a professional contract with Barcelona at a young age but Bojan could never replicate his performances with any senior team.

Barcelona opted to give Bojan a chance of gaining experience outside of Spain and Bojan was offloaded to As.Roma on a loan deal with a chance of being signed permanently but after not being able of making a splash with the Italian side, he returned to Barcelona and once more he was loaned to another club, this time it was Ac.Milan but once again Bojan failed on making an impact and eventually he was signed by the Premier League side Stoke City on a permanent deal.

Despite having struggled so much in the past, the coach of Stoke City, Mark Hughes is confident that BojanKrkic will make a huge impact in the Premier League.

BojanKrkic made his Premier League debut with Stoke City on August 16 but it wasn’t until 3 months later when the Spanish forward managed to score his first league goal during Stoke City’s 2-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur and Mark Hughes believes that Bojan will kick-start his goal-scoring record for Stoke City and make a huge impact in this season in his new club.

‘’We’re going to benefit from his ability and his goal-scoring because he’s a good talent when he gets in good areas of the field. He gets shots off early and it’s difficult for keepers to react quickly enough. He’ll score goals for us this year’’ Stoke City’s Mark Hughes said as he praised BojanKrkic.

Stoke City continued their impressive home form after getting a 2-1 win over Swansea during the weekend. The victory, however, was marred by accusations by opposition manager Gary Monk that Stoke had cheated their way out of the match. He said that the penalty that was awarded for a foul on Victor Moses should have never been given. He has also accused the player, who is on loan from Chelsea till the end of the season, that he should be ashamed of cheating. Stoke manager Mark Hughes has come in defence of his player by saying that Monk was out of his depth.
He said that Monk should never make comments about his player. Swansea had made a fine start to the season, but their form has nosedived of late. The club has not won in the last three matches and the upcoming run-off fixtures do not seem to get any easier with matches against the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool. Even though Swansea still remain in the top 10 of the table, pressure is increasing on manager Monk. He has done a stellar job since replacing Michael Laudrup towards the end of last season. Hughes says that the accusations by Monk were simply a case of a manager not being happy with the result.
“I heard him say that my player is a cheat, which is unacceptable in my view. He’s obviously upset. We have to come here 20 minutes after the game and speak about what’s gone on and sometimes you have to bite your tongue. Maybe that will come from experience. Challenges like that that Ryan’s made, I went into meetings with managers at the beginning of the year and referees were talking about it. I’m disappointed about it. It doesn’t take much in the box for someone running at pace,” said Hughes.

Tottenham proved that there is still a lot of work to be done under new manager Mauricio Pochettino after the team could only manage a 2-2 draw against Sunderland in the latest league match. Tottenham came into the encounter after having made a great start to the campaign, but that was recently halted by a 3-0 defeat against Liverpool. Tottenham looked very poor in this encounter and it appears that they have not recovered fully from this humiliating defeat. Despite taking a very early lead in the match, they failed to see out the full 90 minutes and ended up conceding a late equaliser.
Chadli had given Tottenham the lead after just two minutes on the clock but it did not take long for the home team to come back with a goal from former Manchester City winger Adam Johnson. From then on, Tottenham were on the upper hand and their dominance resulted in the goal from midfielder Christian Eriksen just after the break. Heading into the final 10 minutes of the match, it looked like Tottenham would get three points and put behind the memories of the Liverpool defeat. Sunderland, though, pushed on and were rewarded with an own goal from Harry Kane in the 82nd minute.
“I am very disappointed. We created a lot of chances and I think we deserved to win today but this is football. Yes the performance can improve and when we analyse today we are very disappointed because in a normal way you get the three points with the chances we have. You need to kill the game and we have had the chances to kill the game and if you don’t kill the game maybe the opponent will have a chance and today they were lucky,” said the Tottenham manager. The club’s next league match is against strugglers West Brom at home.

Stoke City boss Mark Hughes has revealed that he does not want to sell Peter Crouch despite having brought in Mame Biram Diouf as one of the main strikers. Diouf has joined the club on a free transfer after leaving German club Hannover. He signed a four-year contract. Scoring goals was a major problem for Stoke last season. Figures have been pointed towards former Liverpool and Tottenham striker Crouch, who appears to have lost his scoring touch in recent years. After managing 38 appearances last season, Crouch got only 10 goals.

In the previous season, he had scored just eight. Such low scoring figures have put his place in jeopardy, but Hughes has confirmed that Crouch remains an integral part of the team. Stoke went through a transitional season after bringing in Mark Hughes in order to change the style of play. It was achieved to some extent, but this campaign could be the one where Hughes puts his own stamp on the team. The former Manchester City and Blackburn manager has already brought in several new signings like Steve Sidwell and Phil Bardsley.

This represents a significant shift in philosophy, but Crouch is set to be retained. Stoke could consider selling the 33-year-old given that he is out of contract next summer. “Peter did very well last year. Obviously people picked up on something I said a couple of weeks back about some players arriving so some players will feel that they have to leave. Peter isn’t one of those I hope because he was exceptional last season, did really well for me. He’s a great asset on and off the field so we don’t want Peter to leave. He’s got a big part to play,” said Hughes.
Stoke start the new Premier League campaign with a home match against Aston Villa.

Stoke City has added a new player into their squad after signing Dionatan Teixeira from the Slovakian club Dukla Banska Bystrica.

Following the completion of the transfer, Teixeira expressed his happiness about joining the Premier League club Stoke City as he said: “I have a new, great club and it is the start of a new life for me. I have to train well to I have to play Premier League and develop my football. I very much wanted a chance to play to the best league in the world.”

On some previous occasions Mark Hughes has praised Teixeira as the manager of Stoke City considers the defender to be technically gifted with plenty of potential.

The Welsh manager said: “I’ve liked what he has produced during his short time with us and that is one we are hoping to progress. He’s a technically good player, but he’s also young and will have plenty still to learn.”

Mark Hughes also wants to strengthen the offensive sector of Stoke City with rumors that are linking the English club with Mohamed Yattara of Lyon. Yattara is a 20 year old striker hailing from Guinea who can also play on the wings and even at his young age, he has already represented Guinea on 6 occasions and made over 90 appearances throughout all of the clubs he has played for.

Stoke City’s pre-season tour will see them locking horns against Borussia Monchengladbach, 1860 Munich and FC Schalke 04 as the team of Mark Hughes wants to prepare themselves for the next season which kicks off in August And Mark Hughes wants his side to compete in the Europa League but will need to at least get a top 5 finish in the Premier League.

Stoke city manager Mark Hughes has stated that he is hoping that funds will be available for his disposal in the summer. Stoke just completed a remarkable campaign during which time they have managed to stay in the top half of the table. This was always going to be difficult season for the club given that they were without manager Tony Pulis, who had been at the club for several years. Hence, this was seen as a transitional period, but Hughes has managed to implement some methods from the past to help the club retain their philosophy.

Hughes was primarily brought in to improve the style of play at the club. He has largely tried to implement this by the arrival of players like Stephen Ireland. However, he has also not been looking to make the changes too quickly, which would have been disastrous. After a season in which they almost reached the Europa league places, Stoke will now be looking to build in the coming seasons. The first step towards doing so will be handing Mark Hughes a sizeable transfer kitty in the summer. The former Manchester city manager, though, does not know the size of the funds at his disposal.

Stoke have been linked with permanent moves for players like Oussama Assaidi.

“I haven’t really been given (a total in) pounds, shillings and pence, but if I go to the owners with a good case for certain players then they will try to back me, I’m sure. It’s not a case of them trying to move the goalposts. I knew exactly when I got the job here what the ball park figure was. We had more variation in our play and we four different scorers (v Fulham), so it shows we’ve got a threat in different areas, are not one dimensional and can mix it up,” said Hughes.