Stoke City transfer news: what Mark Robins and Jon Walters have said about January window
Mark Robins has joined Stoke City at the start of an important month when he can play a part in reshaping the squad he has inherited.
Robins has 20 league games remaining this season to put his stamp on where Stoke finish in the Championship, plus an FA Cup third round trip to Sunderland with recent experiences from his time at Coventry about how much fun can be had in that competition.
There has been a major overhaul in the Stoke changing room over the last couple of years, with Alex Neil, Jared Dublin and Ricky Martin getting the chance to bring in 19 players in the summer of 2023 after three years of hard work dealing with financial fair play restrictions.
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Then Steven Schumacher, Jon Walters, Lee Darnbrough, Narcis Pelach and now Robins have been tasked with trying to find a way to rebuild again after the reset didn’t work as hoped – and overseeing that rebuild with more FFP constraints.
There might not be a load of business in January but the right two or three deals could make a crucial difference in the here and now and also set Stoke up for a summer window when opportunities will be greater.
Robins was asked about how transfer business will work in his first press conference as boss.
He said: “We speak all the time and we have open conversations. There’s a recruitment team that I’ve been acquainted with and I’d known previously, known of previously, and they work their socks off.
“It is notoriously tough, January, really, really tough to operate in any way. We have to make sure that everything is aligned and we don’t make any mistakes that might damage the next window, which is a really big window for us in the summer – but we have to make sure we have enough to be competitive this time around.
“We’ve got to keep our players moving in that forward direction and trying to ensure the energy is there to be able to do that. There are injuries to key players in key positions so there’s a slight imbalance to things; Million Manhoef, Ben Pearson has been out for a long period of time, Bosun Lawal has come back from a longer-term injury than was anticipated previously.
“But there are some young players there, it’s a youngish squad anyway. It looks exciting, we just have to make sure we keep it moving in the right direction and we’ll do the work in the background to make sure that things move forward properly. We’ll get it going.”
Walters has been back at Stoke for 10 months, tasked with overseeing things behind the scenes that will give the club the best chance of releasing themselves from a trap in the bottom half of the Championship.
There were 10 signings in the summer – including four loans and a free agent – but he knew it was not going to be an easy fix.
He said: “It’s not an enjoyable time when things like that (Pelach’s exit) happen and decisions have got to be made but you’ve got to try to pull things together. Speaking to Mark and his drive to get back into football, especially at Stoke, and the team he has brought in are second to none – really good coaches with an experienced manager is an unbelievable set-up, with Darren (Behcet) as goalkeeper coach – as a building it’s still the same group of people and in all the departments we’ve got a really good set-up.
“I’ve touched upon the work done in the summer to try to turn the mentality around and Mark will see that over the next few days, weeks and months. We’ve got a really strong group of staff behind him and behind the team.”
He added: “(The January window is) difficult. We’ve already started (talks about recruitment with Robins). It was difficult in the summer (in terms of financial constraints) and we brought in 10 players. I thought we did really well with the players we did get in but now it’s another battle and January is always a difficult window anyway. We’ve got one loan spot left and little bits we might be able to do.
“It’s been a busy few days behind the scenes to assemble a team of really good people to come in and now it’s setting on the team.”
