Stoke City after boxing day

After taking a good look at all the players I managed to make a really good plan for the second part of the season. I’ve managed to select a pack of players that are deemed to the status of indispensable: Paulo Henrique, the Stoke City playmaker, a 10.000.000 € star player, the man who is behind many of the team’s goals (22 appearances, 7.32 average rating). Jonathan Cristaldo, the young Argentinean striker arrived at the club in the summer for 3.500.000 € is at the moment, without any doubt, the number one goalscorer for the Potters, bagging 19 goals in 24 appearances (7.53 average rating). Ryan Shawcross, the rock in the heart of the Stoke City defense, the youngster that has the captaincy power in his own hands (25 appearances, 7.18 average rating).

But let’s speak a little about the players that are in danger of being listed by the club. Thomas Sorensen, the Danish goalkeeper has been far from satisfying this year, spending just around half of the team games in the starting line-up, he is by far one of the players that will be sold (wage 1.100.000 €). Danny Higginbotham at the moment is a very useful player, being able to play both DC and DL, but even so, he is already 32 years-old and has a 1.000.000 € wage. Diego Camacho was conscious that his time spent at Stoke wasn’t going to be long, and is at the moment one of the players of the verge of departure, 34 years-old and 650.000 € wage. Finally we have veteran Michael Ball, the left back brought back to life at Stoke after one year of being a free agent. Unfortunately for both Ball and Stoke he was largely disappointing, finding himself more that on one occasion on the bench (31 years-old, 800.000 € wage).

The current Stoke City team for the fore coming matches should look like this in case there are no injuries:

Begovic (Sorensen) – Vandam (Zanni), Ball (Alex Sandro), Shawcross (Faye, Higginbotham), Huth (A.Davies, Wilkinson) – Diao (Kouyate, Diego Camacho), Maresca (Pekalski), Whelan (Whitehead, Wilson, Cuvelier), Paulo Henrique (Brahimi, Kevin) – Cristaldo (K.Jones), Necid (Sidibe, Kapetanos, Bernardo).

This would be the face of Stoke City if the four players earlier mentioned would be sold and all the loans would end without the club signing any of the players:

Begovic – Wilkinson, (no defender left), Shawcross (Faye), Huth (A.Davies) – Diao (Kouyate), Maresca (Pekalski), Whelan (Whitehead, Wilson, Cuvelier), Paulo Henrique (Tuncay Sanli, Brahimi, Kevin) – Cristaldo (Bernardo), Jones (Sidibe).

Here we have all the players at club (8.1.2011) and some of their most important information.

Stoke City, 14th place in the Premier League, a situatian that is very close the the objective established at the beggining of the season (a safe mid-table position).