- Stoke City are the latest visitors to King Power Stadium on Saturday afternoon
- Journalist Pete Smith from the Stoke Sentinel gives his lowdown on the Potters
- Alex Neil’s side sit 18th in the Sky Bet Championship ahead of the 3pm BST kick-off
- They defeated Bristol City in their last away outing but lost to Southampton in midweek
The Potters will arrive at King Power Stadium on Saturday having won three of their opening 10 Sky Bet Championship matches, with a promising start tailing off due to injuries and a loss of form.
For Smith, the vast level of change within the playing staff over the summer means it has been no easy task for manager Alex Neil to form a squad capable of challenging at the top end of the division.
He explained: “With 17 new signings, they’ve brought a lot of players in and it’s a completely new squad pretty much, but they needed this huge clear out. They’ve described it as a ‘club reset’ and have started from scratch again.
“They’ve finished in the bottom half for five seasons since relegation from the Premier League. If you don’t go up straight away, each year gets harder, especially because you have to readjust the budget so significantly.
“In the last three years, Stoke have been really challenged financially and it’s been hard to pick up results as well as meeting those commitments. They started encouragingly, got a couple of really good wins and promising performances under their belt, but as they’ve gone along, they’ve had some really tough injury problems as well.
“Players like André Vidigal, who has really looked the business, Ryan Mmaee, the centre forward, and left-back Enda Stevens in particular, who had been a regular starter – they’ve all been stuck in the treatment room.
“This will be their seventh game in 21 days. On Wednesday, they went in without eight players and two more got injured on the night. Alex Neil knows that he needs to somehow churn out results or the pressure will grow, no matter what.”
A narrow midweek defeat to Southampton leaves Stoke 18th in the current standings, but on their day, they have proved to be a match for any side, as evidenced in the 3-2 victory at Ashton Gate in their last away fixture.
“There’s an appreciation that in the last couple of games there’s been a lot of spirit,” the journalist continued. “They came from 2-0 down to win at Bristol City and they had a real fight in the face of adversity against Southampton. Some decisions didn’t go their way too.
“The players really fought and, as long as they can do that and look like they are going to get results, then I think people will take each game in isolation and not write off the players after a defeat. It’s a really tight division. Every match is tight.
“The response since the Hull defeat has been promising in terms of the character shown. They’ve got players coming back after the international break so hopefully there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
Among several injury concerns, some of the club’s youngsters have been given a chance to shine. One player who took his chance was Nathan Lowe and he looks a promising talent who may help Stoke to try and achieve their long-term aims.
“Lowe has come into the team over the last couple of weeks – he’s a really exciting prospect at 18-year-old,” Smith added. “He came off the bench last Saturday and scored the winning goal. He’s a proper No.9 but is mobile and keen to score. He got his first start on Tuesday and we’re really excited about his potential. Hopefully he can show it.
“The ambitions for this season in particular are to be much better than they have been in the last five years, which have been a slog. The longer-term ambition is to get into the Premier League and stay there.
“They don’t want to be a yo-yo club who go up and come down. They want to see themselves back in the big time. It’s not all going to click at once, but it does need to at some stage, and they’ve got to show that they can get into the top half. Once you’re there, anything can happen.”