Imbula features: Stoke City’s 5 biggest transfer flop signings from recent times
Stoke City have had more misses than hits when it comes to big-money transfers recently, and are still paying the price to this day for some of their poor spending over the last 10 years.
Stoke managed to become an established Premier League side after Tony Pulis guided the club to promotion to the top-flight in 2008, and Mark Hughes took the managerial reins in 2013 to take the Potters even further and finish in the top-half for three consecutive seasons.
They looked to spend big to consolidate their position in the upper echelons of English football as more money came their way, but numerous high-profile signings over the next few years failed, they were soon relegated in 2018, and have not finished in the top half of the Championship since.
With that said, FLW has picked out five of the biggest flops that the Potters have signed in recent times.
Giannelli Imbula
Central midfielder Giannelli Imbula became Stoke’s record signing when he joined the club on a five-and-a-half-year contract for a club record £18.3m from FC Porto at the end of the January transfer window in 2016, but did not repay that figure with his performances in the years, or months, to come.
Imbula was clearly a very talented footballer, but only displayed that every so often in a Stoke shirt and never really seemed to get to grips with life in England or the hard work needed to keep up with English football every week.
He actually got off to a great start to his time in the Potteries, as he played a full 90 minutes in all of Stoke’s final 14 games of the 2015/16 campaign, while netting twice, but he soon lost his place in Mark Hughes’ side in 2016/17 and made just 14 appearances all season, before it was reported that Stoke would be happy to let him leave.
The Frenchman soon went out on loan to Toulouse, Rayo Vallecano and Lecce, before he had his contract terminated by Stoke in February 2020, as a four-year stay that saw little impact and a lot of money lost came to an end.
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