SPOTLIGHT IS ON CONTRACT TALKS, YOUNG PLAYERS, AND BEHIND THE SCENES CHANGE
THERE are important issues off the field for Stoke City as well as on it amid the challenges and inconsistency of the Championship.
Here is the latest club notebook, covering contracts and behind the scenes structure.
STOKE HOLD CONTRACT OPTIONS ON YOUNG DUO
Josh Tymon was the latest in a line of Stoke’s young players – and biggest assets – to sign new long-term contracts over the past couple of years.
The 22-year-old, who has agreed a three-and-a-half year deal, follows in the footsteps of Harry Souttar, Joe Bursik and Tyrese Campbell and was won over by playing time, development and ambition. All have had serious suitors.
It is a key part of the club process. Stoke haven’t paid a transfer fee for anyone over 23 since Michael O’neill took charge, and the big money Nathan Collins sale showed they will trade if they think it will fund squad improvements while Financial Fair Play rules limit investment from the Coates family.
The hope and expectation is that Ben Wilmot, Jordan Thompson, Jacob Brown and Sam Surridge will, in blunt terms, add value.
Thompson and Brown are both widely listed as being out of contract next summer but, as with Nick Powell, Stoke are protected with options to automatically extend their stays.
It will be interesting to see what happens next with senior players coming to the end of their present terms – Adam Davies, Tommy Smith, Danny Batth, James Chester, Steven Fletcher and captain Joe Allen, as well as all-but forgotten man Tom Ince.
STOKE EXCITED ABOUT TEENAGE PROSPECT TEZGEL
Up near the top of Tony Scholes’s list of priorities before he exits for the Premier League has been to secure the contracts of Tymon and 16-year-old England youth striker Emre Tezgel. One done, one to go.
Chelsea have been particularly keen on Tezgel, the Painsley student from Forsbrook who has always been an exceptional prospect as he has come through the ranks at Clayton Wood.
He was an under-15 standing out in the under-18s last season – even if he was too young to be allowed to play in the FA Youth Cup.
Now he is largely with the under-23s and has already trained with O’neill and the first team.
He returned to Rich Walker’s 18s for the Youth Cup win at Norwich last Wednesday, and then scored two superb goals in a brilliant win over rarelydefeated Manchester City.
The first was a fine volley, the second a solo effort.
Stoke fans are perhaps still a little raw from losing Mo Sankoh, then 16, to Stuttgart despite doing everything possible to keep him, including a lucrative contract offer.
He had a taste of the Bundesliga before his season was ruled out by a horrible knee injury.
But Campbell, Souttar, Collins and Bursik have shown there is a real pathway by staying put – and Stoke coaches, staff and players certainly know what they’ve got in this all-round forward.
CLUB STRUCTURE TO WEIGH UP UPON SCHOLES’S DEPARTURE
Stoke’s set-up behind the scenes has been pretty consistent over the last 25 years.
Jez Moxey and Jonathan Fuller have been chief executives liaising between the board, the administration and the football departments before Tony Scholes took on the all-encompassing role back in 2004.
The minutes of the supporters’ council, which he helped to establish, always show the diversity of his job from stadium lighting, public address system and replica shirts to financial rules, transfer negotiations and season ticket prices.
Scholes’s importance was highlighted when he joined the board in 2010, sitting with Peter Coates, Coates’s son and jointchairman John, and son-in-law vicechairman Richard Smith. He will resign that directorship in January.
So this is a rare chance for the hierarchy to weigh up their operations.
It could be possible that Stoke could look for a big figure to directly take the baton.
Whispers on social media have suggested that could be Lee Charnley, who left Newcastle United last month.
Charnley no doubt had a tough task at times working under Mike Ashley, whose popularity fell spectacularly the longer he stayed in charge.
But he has been on friendly terms with Stoke, offering advice in recent years about his own experience between Championship and Premier League.
Football insiders think Stoke’s more likely route would be to instead go with a chief operating officer and head of football – working with John Coates, who has plenty of experience as a hands-on senior figure.
It will all be revealed soon enough. Scholes leaves to take up a position as the Premier League’s chief football officer next month.