It is going to be fun watching new-look Stoke City take shape as 14 signings bring back buzz
Stoke City legend Mike Pejic reviews another busy week at the club with three new signings ahead of a trip to Millwall
It hasn’t half been a busy summer at Stoke City and I’m looking forward to watching how all these new signings settle in over the next few weeks and months.
It’s 14 new signings so far, if you’re keeping track, and it’s given everyone excitement. If what we read about them all is true then it’s a fresh outlook and that was needed after far too long in the doldrums. There’s a buzz.
We were short in terms of what we had in the squad last season and there were also players who were too comfortable. You need strong competition for the shirt to make sure the group is dynamic and developing. You want to see players training fiercely because that gives them the approach they will have when they run out on a Saturday.
As a manager, you need your incomings to have the same outlook as you and if you get it right, you’re onto a winner. If you have players who please themselves, forget them. They’ve got to be consistent from Monday to Friday and on a match day. Anybody who lags behind will have the cards marked and off they can pop.
It all ties in together and if you tick those boxes there’s a good spirit, everyone enjoys turning up for training every day and there’s a drive, enthusiasm and commitment.
Bit by bit we have seen big items on the checklist ticked off: a regular goalkeeper, full-backs, defensive midfielder, wingers, target man. Even a lad from Serbia arrived this week just to please me! Zdravo and srećno to Nikola Jojic, hello and good luck.
We’ve got a lot of different options and that’s important because you need to be ready for anything in the Championship, which is full of all kinds of different challenges. It’s great to be able to think about how you can approach a game from the start and then to be able to change it after 15 or 85 minutes depending on what you need and what you’re up against.
You can change personnel and you can change systems. You can keep the opposition guessing and, hopefully, panicking.
I was impressed by what I saw last weekend against Watford. We were competitive from the off and I thought the back three looked solid and organised along with the keeper, Mark Travers, who seemed confident working with them. To have that understanding in the early days, having changed formation as well, is a good sign.
The midfield functioned quite well and I thought Jordan Thompson had a decent game. He’s the kind of character who will give Ben Pearson something to think about – or Josh Laurent and Daniel Johnson too because Alex Neil could play Thompson and Pearson sitting together – a left footer and a right footer – in front of a back three or four in certain matches.
I would have liked to have seen Laurent getting involved a bit more. We needed him to work with possession rather than pushing too far into the final third looking for the ball. He needs to work angles and distances, creating and exploiting space in the mid-third where he can use his passing ability to get it into Wesley and Andre Vidigal.
I want to see him on the ball and dictating more. He can drive effectively into the final third on or off the ball – but if that’s all he’s trying to do, it loses the element of surprise and teams can suss you out. The timing of when you go is crucial. Give them uncertainty. That’s what breaks down defences.
Vidigal can have almost a free role if he’s playing alongside Wesley. He can turn and face up to players and he’s shown his ability with that finish alone. He can create half a yard, we just need to make sure we feed him the right types of pass, mix up the pace, or get it into Wesley so he can work off him.
It will be a different test at Millwall, of course. We know how Gary Rowett works and how he likes to keep things tight. He’s done it enough times against us since leaving Stoke. He’ll be upset after losing at home to Bristol City and at Norwich and he’ll be looking to get them back on track so that they can aim for the top six again.
He’s done a fine job there and the fact he’s getting some pelters from his own fans is because of the ambition of the club that he’s instilled. They want to be in the play-off mix again, they don’t want to lose a match, let alone two of the first three. He won’t be short of motivation but let’s just hope he’s getting a bit more stick this evening.
