Stoke manager Mark Hughes has ruled out the club making any major signings in the summer but insists he is still hungry to achieve things with the Potters.
The Welshman is currently in his fourth season with the club and the general consensus is that he has failed to fulfil the progression plan and has struggled to get the best out of his players.
With just one win in their last ten games, Stoke have enjoyed yet another indifferent campaign and Hughes is quickly becoming a figure of frustration for the fans. However, he remains defiant about the long term and still protects his players.
“We will make key changes in terms of personnel in trying to improve the top end of the squad if we can,” he said, via Stoke Sentinel.
“We have still got things we want to do. What we are finding it does get harder, but there’s a definite correlation between resources at the top end and the ability of the players they have to score 15 to 20 goals-a-year and we haven’t had that ability yet.
“But we are hopeful moving forward and Saido (Berahino) has come to the club and we have good hopes that he will return to being that 15 to 20-goal striker and, if we get one of them, that takes you to a different level.
“The owners have put a huge investment into the club and that’s why we are an established Premier League club, but it’s fair to say huge amounts of money won’t be spent in the future.
“But I knew that when I first came to the club, so I’ve always worked within those parameters and I’m comfortable with that.
“We will generate money from sales in the future because we’ve got better quality players now and if we want to trade we can do, but it will always be with a view to using those resources to the best of our ability.
“We are trying to cut our cloth. We are not going into the market for £30m players. That’s not going to happen any time soon.
“We will try to compete in a difficult market because there’s a lot of clubs with similar resources to ourselves after the same players and that’s the challenge.”
admin
