Stoke City transfer state of play as Championship business picks up

Mark Robins has welcomed his Stoke City squad back for first team training as the countdown picks up to his first full campaign as manager

This is not quite a copy and paste of last week. Stoke City remain busy behind the scenes to add to the first team squad and transfer activity is accelerating now that clubs have returned for pre-season training.

Players who have had lots of options and spent the last few days sizing them all up, being shown around training grounds and stadiums, will now start to be pushed into making decisions. There is a bumper catalogue of free agents, for example, and the most eye-catching ones will have been courted extensively.

Only a couple of the out-of-contract players who made our Championship free agent XI earlier this summer have resolved their situations. Harry Darling has joined up with old manager Liam Manning at Norwich while Jimmy Dunne has decided to stay at Queens Park Rangers. Both had been on Stoke’s radar.

There is a long list of young players who will be let out on loan by Premier League clubs too and a few of those more highly-coveted ones have also been on tours of potential options.