NICK IS SMILES BETTER
Positive Powell playing career-best football with Potters, insists delighted manager O’neill
MICHAEL O’neill says Nick Powell is in a happy place as he finds the best form of his career at Stoke City.
Powell has scored 12 for Stoke this season – his best return in the Championship – and O’neill is enjoying the challenge of coaxing out his ‘top level’ potential.
“What puts Nick Powell in a good place? The player does himself more than anything else,” said the manager.
“Since I’ve come to the club what we’ve got out of him has been terrific. You have to manage Nick but he’s a very, very talented boy.
“He’s at a good age now. He’s just turned 27, he had that big move at a very early point in his career and he’s had to fight his way back after the disappointment of that possibly not working out as he had hoped.
“He’s got so much left in his career and I just think he’s happy at the club, he’s happy where he’s at, happy with the club he’s at, happy with the position he’s playing and you just have to make sure you keep him focused and then you get out of him what we’ve had consistently this season.
“Ultimately since January last season when we brought him into the team, his level of play has been of a very high standard.”
Powell, who has another season on his contract at Stoke, had a £6m move from League Two Crewe Alexandra to Premier League Manchester United back when he had just turned 18 but it was a long road from there to joining Stoke in 2019.
O’neill said: “We see young players at our club like (Rabbi) Matondo and (Jack) Clarke who were both teenagers when they moved for a significant amount. Valuation of young players is quite skewed sometimes.
“I think Nick’s been a good help to them actually because he’s been through that experience himself.
“You have to give young players time and then if it doesn’t go as you’d hope it does, they need good strength of character to do what Nick’s done.
“At one point he moved to League One with Wigan, having been at Manchester United, and as I said all along, I believe there’s a top level player in there, we just have to continue to get it out of him.”
Clarke is heading back to Spurs for treatment on season-ending ankle ligament damage.
Matondo, pictured, was back on the bench for Stoke on Friday after being sent home early from Wales duty following a breach of Covid guidelines.
O’neill said: “Rabbi’s Rabbi. He’s fine. He knows he made a mistake, but he’s a good boy.
“He’s a 20-year-old boy who was possibly led astray a little bit.
“He’s been fine. The disappointing thing for me is that he did well in the game for Wales against Mexico.
“His loan hasn’t gone as well as he’d hoped or we’d hoped, let’s be honest, he hasn’t played as much. When he came he had an injury and it took a little bit of time to get over that.
“But we’ve got seven games to go between now and the end of the season.
“His objective was to come and try to force his way into the Wales squad for the summer so he has to force his way into our team as well.
“It’s a little bit difficult at the minute because we’re not playing with wingers and we maybe have to look at him as an option through the middle for us as well. He did play there at times when he was at Schalke.
“But he’s a good boy. He’s put what happened behind him and he’s learnt from it.”