Stoke City legend Mike Pejic hopes there are constructive arguments in the recruitment department in this vital summer window.
I remember writing in these pages back in the spring that Steven Schumacher had clearly been consumed by the big task of weighing up everyone in the massive Stoke City squad he had inherited.
There had been an indifferent period of results and Schumacher had been testing and challenging players, making his mind up and finding out their strengths and weaknesses, the positions they can play in depending on the needs of the match at any point or the styles they can thrive in or sink. As a coach you keep reports in your head about a player’s attributes and character in different circumstances. Who can you lean on in a crisis? Who needs a hug, who needs a kick and who needs showing the door.
Gradually he got Stoke being solid towards the end of the season, results changed and he had a tighter group of people who were involved from week to week.
Some of those who were left on the sidelines have already gone in the natural order of football but, of those remaining, if you fell out of the boss’s plans in the run-in then I’m afraid it will be a big task to get yourself back in. There is always a chance in pre-season for someone to come back and stake a claim, impress a coach and change everyone’s mind but, well, how many times can you remember it really happening?
Schumacher will have his recruitment plans in order and he will know exactly what type of player he wants to bring in. He’ll have names circled and he will be able to compare against the current one or two he currently has in that position. He has to make sure the new ones are better and that is how you raise the bar overall.
It will be an interesting dynamic with the head coach, Jon Walters as sporting director and Lee Darnbrough as head of recruitment. They are new relationships and I hope – and I can have a good bet that it’s the case – that they won’t just be nodding along with each other. You need each of those people to have opinions and voice them, as long as they each want the best for Stoke rather than their own ego.
Make your arguments strongly and clearly about who and what exactly is needed – and who and what exactly isn’t – and do it now rather than a month down the line when we’re about to send a team out in the Championship. When that whistle blows on Saturday, August 10 we all have to have trust that this is a squad that can pull the club up the table. The decisions made now are important and have to comprehensively thought through and, far more than they have been in recent years, they have to be right.
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