‘WE ARE STABLE, WE’VE GOT A REALLY GOOD OWNERSHIP MODEL AND WE ARE BUILDING A TEAM IN A DIFFERENT WAY...’
WHEN Michael O’neill arrived at Stoke City just two years ago there were 37 players on the books who had first team experience.
The just is doing a lot of work in that sentence because a lot has happened since then, not least a pandemic which, in short, has redrawn the financial landscape of life outside the Premier League.
There has been a juggling act between the short and long-term, making sure the club is well set for the duration while not taking an eye off results.
There has been a juggling act between dismantling an expensively assembled squad that was not good enough and trying to build a better one while under the constraints of Financial Fair Play.
Juggling or spinning plates or walking tightropes might make it sound like a circus at times but hopefully the big shoes can now be put back in the box.
The decks have been cleared and, in turn, the future looks clearer.
O’neill said: “At one point we had something like 12 players out on loan. The majority of those were big earners and window by window you try to change that situation.
“It’s not easy because you need someone who will take them. Sometimes you get someone paying all their wages, sometimes you get a portion of their wages.
“But in all of those things it was clear that they weren’t the right types of player for this club.
“We’re now in a different market when we’re looking for players but a lot of those things do hold you back in terms of what you can do in the initial stages.
“I think the club is healthier. The fact is we only have two senior players who are out on loan in Afobe and Etebo and all our other loan players are younger players. There has been a big turnaround in the squad, a lot smaller in numbers and obviously the age and financial profile is different than when I arrived.”
The coaching, medical and recruitment departments have all been refreshed or revamped since November 2019.
It is the transfers that are probably most easily judged and it is no secret that aspect had let Stoke down as they fell out of the Premier League.
Too many too expensive players didn’t work out.
“I don’t like speaking about it too much because I wasn’t at the club,” said O’neill.
“But clearly there are a number of situations when we haven’t been able to recoup that money in terms of those players.
“We made a decision on Nathan Collins in the summer which allowed us to invest in the team again with Ben Wilmot and Sam Surridge in particular. That’s really the kind of decision you have to make.
“There has been substantial investment in the squad since we came to the Championship, it hasn’t
really taken the club where we hoped it would. It’s obviously cost the club a lot of money because those players have predominantly left without any real cash injection coming in.
“But we’re stable, we’ve got a really good ownership model and we’re building a team in a different way than we tried to do from the outset when we were relegated.”
It might all make the life of an international manager – and O’neill had spent eight years in charge of Northern Ireland before he joined Stoke – seem quite appealing.
But he said: “I enjoy this side of it. That’s part of it. I didn’t come here just to pick a team and win games.
“There were a lot of challenges in my last job because we didn’t have loads of players. You’re dependent on your best players being fit all the time.
“You’ve got more scope as a club manager to protect yourself against that and as an international manager you don’t really have that protection.
“It’s a different experience, a different challenge but it’s one I’m enjoying.”