SENTINEL Stoke City Port Vale SPORT INSIDE TODAY Columnists POWELL FINDS FORM IN THE NICK OF TIME O’neill says forward is ‘having as good a season as he’s had in his career’
MICHAEL O’neill is still looking at Nick Powell’s potential as the forward enjoys perhaps the best season of his career.
Powell has found top gear since the turn of the year, scoring six times in nine appearances after a chance to rest bumps and bruises for a week while Stoke were in FA Cup action.
The 26-year-old is hoping to be fit to play through a groin injury against Wycombe (3pm) and O’neill said: “I think he’s enjoying his football. He’s arguably, possibly having as good a season as he’s had in his career, really.
“I always feel there’s more to come from Nick. It’s a discussion we have regularly! He’s got 11 goals now and I would expect him to add to that between now and the end of the season.
“The good thing for me is his versatility. We’ve played him as a number 10, on the left of a front three, as an eight in a midfield three and against Watford we played him as a number nine.
“That’s a lot to deal with for a player and it shows the quality that Nick has and the physical attributes to be able to play in all those positions and play as well as he has and contribute as much as he has.
“We’ve just got to continue to get as much out of him as possible and he has to continue to do that also.”
Powell’s goal threat has been capped by a happy knack of being able to win the ball back in the opposition half and, more importantly, being able to make the most of that.
“He’s got good game intelligence, he can read where the pass may or may not go and shuts off angles well,” said O’neill.
“The good thing about it is, you get some players who can win the ball back but then unfortunately aren’t particularly great at using it, Nick is extremely good at using it well and hurting the opposition.
“It’s excellent that Nick can win the ball back and that’s been a big part of his game this season.”
Stoke are 10 points off the top six with 12 games remaining, but O’neill insists the focus will be on winning as many as possible.
Asked if he was tempted to give more young players a chance instead of players who were coming to the end of their contracts, he said: “I think we’ve only one player out of contract so there’s not many in that situation to be honest.
“We’ve had younger players on the bench in recent games and that’s been driven by the nature of the injuries we’ve had at this minute.
“I think realistically those players are still a little bit away from starting games. The Championship is a tough league to blood players in at that age. Most players will have a pathway where they go out on loan.
“They’ve no experience of playing senior football, they’ve been playing at under-18s or under-23. It’s a massive jump for a young player to make to the Championship. We’ll look.
“The most important thing between now and the end of the season is to win as many games as possible. That’s our only focus. If we have young players that deserve to play, they’ll have the opportunity to play.
But I won’t pick teams without a purpose, the purpose will be to try to win the game.
“You can say the younger players but I think at one point this season Stoke have played the youngest team in 17 years. I don’t think you can say we haven’t blooded younger players this season.” Jordan Cousins’ contract runs out at the end of this season while options are expected to be taken to extend Jon Obi Mikel, left, and James Chester’s stay into next term.