Despite being an historic football club, Stoke City have endured a fairly disastrous decade. After spending ten years in the Premier League, including three consecutive 9th place finishes, Stoke suffered relegation in 2018, and haven’t finished above 14th in the Championship since. From a club who, until recently, had the football world questioning if Lionel Messi was good enough to succeed at their ground, this fall from grace has been startling.
The Potters are one of the richest clubs in the country. Their owners, the Coates family, are regularly listed in the top 20 richest people in the country, as they own betting giant Bet365. They are described by many as local, passionate people who are willing to invest in the team. The club haven’t raised season ticket prices in 17 years and they offer free coach travel to away games. Most Football League clubs who have fallen from grace and are struggling have some kind of financial issues, for example Sheffield Wednesday, Reading and Wigan Athletic. For Stoke, that is not the case.
The club have seen years of turmoil, with players, managers, recruitment staff and directors all being chopped and changed. Poor recruitment, tactics, and sometimes downright misfortune have culminated in Stoke’s demise. Below is a summary of their plight.
History – How Far Have Stoke Fallen From
Stoke City were founded in 1863, but it took until 1972 for the Potters to win their first major trophy, the League Cup. Stoke flirted with the top of the First Division table, and reached the FA Cup semi-finals twice, before a stand was blown off the roof of their stadium, the Victoria Ground, in 1976. Stoke had to sell all of their key players and were relegated at the end of the following season. The Potters did return to the topflight a couple of seasons later, in 1979, but not to their former glory, and they were relegated back down in 1985.
It took 23 years for Stoke to return to the Premier League. Tony Pulis guided a side led by players such as Ricardo Fuller, Ryan Shawcross and Rory Delap to promotion. Rory’s glorious, monstrous throw-ins started to terrorise the Premier League’s defences and Stoke beat Manchester City and Arsenal in their first season to keep themselves up. Pulis guided Stoke to the FA Cup final in 2011, losing to Manchester City after having beaten Bolton 5-0 in the semi-final, and they played in the Europa League the following year.
Tony Pulis departed in 2013 and was replaced by Mark Hughes. Hughes transformed the club into ‘Stokealona’ by bringing in former Champions League winners Bojan, Ibrahimm Afellay and Xherdan Shaqiri, as well as goalscoring forwards such as Marko Arnautovic and Joselu. Stoke finished 9th in 3 consecutive seasons, and achieved famous victories, including 6-1 against Liverpool in Steven Gerrard’s final game for them, against the established elite of English football. They were a penalty shootout away from reaching the 2016 League Cup final, ultimately losing out to Liverpool.
That game is often described as a turning point for Stoke. The following season they finished 13th, and then the year after they were relegated. The decline of the Potters since then has been enormous and sudden and doesn’t look like it will end soon.
The Relegation and The ‘Rebound’
In 2017, key man Marko Arnautovic left Stoke to join West Ham United, and Bojan was out on loan at Alaves having fallen out of favour following injury problems. Stoke attempted to replace these stars with Jese, Eric Choupo-Moting, and Saido Berahino. Jese started well, by scoring the winner against Arsenal on his debut, before he went absent without leave. Berahino cost £12 million from West Brom, but he didn’t score a Premier League goal for the club.
Other examples of poor recruitment include Gianelli Imbula and Kevin Wimmer, who cost £18 million each, and Badou N’Diaye at £14 million. Their season just kept getting worse, including a 2-1 defeat at League Two Coventry City in the FA Cup third round. Stoke sacked Mark Hughes halfway through that season and replaced him with Paul Lambert, who was unable to keep the club safe. Stoke were relegated with a 2-1 defeat at home to Crystal Palace, ending their decade-long stint in the Premier League.
Following relegation, Stoke spent big to try to secure promotion. Gary Rowett was poached from Derby County following their defeat in the playoffs the previous year to lead the project. Tom Ince, Benik Afobe, James McClean and Sam Clucas all came in and joined a squad that still contained former England internationals Jack Butland and Ryan Shawcross, Dutch defenders Erik Pieters and Bruno Martins Indi, and 3 members from the Wales squad that reached the Euro 2016 semi-final. In all, £50 million was spent in transfer fees.
That was money wasted. Rowett was sacked in January; replaced by Nathan Jones. Jones could only guide Stoke to mid table, 14th place, as their season petered out once the playoffs became out of reach.
The following year, Jones brought in some Premier League players on loan, as well as free agents from the bottom half of the Championship or the top of League One, as they looked to improve on the previous year. Instead, they did even worse. They had the worst start to a season in their history, gaining their first victory on the 11th match of the season, as Scott Hogan scored a last gasp winner to beat Swansea. Jones was dismissed and replaced by Michael O’Neill, the former Northern Ireland manager who had impressively guided them to the 2016 Euros.
O’Neill steadied the ship. Important late winners by Mame Diouf against Wigan and Sam Vokes against Sheffield Wednesday kept Stoke in contention to stay up, and by the time COVID impacted the season, Stoke had thrashed Hull 5-1 and were an in-form team. The pandemic didn’t particularly harm the Potters by slowing their momentum. Victories against Brentford and Nottingham Forest denied those sides promotion and the playoffs respectively and kept Stoke safe and looking up the table before the next campaign.
The Financial Fair Play Troubles
Because Stoke had spent big to earn promotion, but were unable to achieve it, City were now in a financial dilemma. Their parachute payments from the Premier League were running out, and they had an enormous wage bill consisting of underperforming players on Premier League salaries who were unwilling to take a pay cut to move elsewhere.
When combined with the global pandemic, this put Stoke in a Financial Fair Play dilemma. They were forced to sell the training ground and stadium to their owners Bet365 to balance the FFP books, and they also limited their involvement in the transfer market as Jacob Brown from Barnsley was the only player to join for a notable transfer fee in the summer of 2020.
Despite this, City started well and were in the playoffs for the majority of the first half of the season. They fell away, ending the season in a disappointing 14th place, only one place higher than the previous campaign.
The 2021/22 season was very similar to the previous campaign. New signing Mario Vrancic impressed in the first half of the season, and City were once again in contention for the playoffs before they fell away. They again ended the season in 14th, only two points higher than last season as progress stagnated.
These disappointments frustrated the Stoke board, and they sacked Michael O’Neill 5 games into the new 2022/23 season after they won only 1 of those first 5. He was replaced by Alex Neil, who had guided Sunderland to promotion from League One the year before.
Neil was unable to see City progress. The season ended with City finishing in 16th place, 9 points worse off than the season before. The bright spot in the season was a 5-1 win at Neil’s old side Sunderland, which showed the potential of this Stoke team, but that was not seen often enough.
Global Signings Same Potters
Because of the EFL financial rules allowing clubs to make losses over a three-year period, clubs can spend larger amounts of money every three years. Jared Dublin arrived as the club’s head of recruitment, promising a data-driven model of scouting. As such, Stoke spent big in the summer of 2023, on players from all over the world. Bae Junho arrived from Daejeon Hana Citizen in South Korea, whilst Moroccan forward Ryan Mmaee signed from Hungarian side Ferencvaros and Dutchman Wouter Burger joined from Basel. A 4-1 win over Rotherham on the first matchday of the season created a sense of optimism around the club that their fortunes may be about to change.
That optimism quickly faded. Neil was dismissed 20 games into the campaign, as a 1-0 defeat at home to Sheffield Wednesday left City on the brink of falling into the relegation zone. Steven Schumacher came in to replace him, and it took a 1-0 win at Premier League bound Southampton to secure safety on the penultimate matchday. Jared Dublin was dismissed before the end of the season, and many of his signings had fallen out of favour long before the season had finished. A 4-0 win against Bristol City on the final day of the season however created a sense of hope for the upcoming campaign.
24/25 – The Current Season
Unfortunately for Stoke fans, that hope has long been dashed. After a 1-0 defeat at newly promoted Oxford United, Schumacher was sacked and replaced by Narcis Pelach. The Spaniard was taking his first job as a head coach, and his inexperience showed. A 6-1 win over Portsmouth aside, Stoke never really got going under Pelach, and a run of 3 victories in 16 games had once again dragged the Potters closer to the relegation zone.
Pelach was sacked after a 0-2 defeat against promotion favourites Leeds United. Interim manager Ryan Shawcross guided City to a surprise 1-0 win against Sunderland, before Mark Robins took over as manager.
Although Robins’ tenure in charge has been short, he has slightly steadied the ship. City are currently 5 points clear of the relegation zone, with a game in hand on Plymouth below them in 22nd.
10 years ago, it would be unfathomable that Stoke City would have a third straight year of celebrating survival in the Championship. However, that’s exactly where Stoke find themselves today. The tale of poor recruitment and the constant hiring and firing of managers may seem repetitive, but frustratingly for Stoke City it has been all too real in recent seasons.
From one of the most feared teams in the country to one of the most exciting, to now having fallen dramatically and facing relegation to League One, Stoke City’s tale is a reminder that having finances and rich owners is not everything in football, and that fortunes can and do change very quickly. Stoke will believe that they can break out of this rut and that they can rise to the top division once again, put that path forward remains very uncertain.
