Stoke City’s final few years in the Premier League saw the club make a number of high-profile signings that proved to be disastrous.
The Potters had done extremely well to punch above their weight under Tony Pulis and earn their survival in the top flight over multiple seasons.
Mark Hughes helped bring a more attractive style of play to the club, with the side earning three consecutive ninth place finishes in his first three years in charge of the side.
However, it was in the summer of 2016 when the first signs of trouble started to creep in.
The arrival of Giannelli Imbula for £18.3 million was a then club-record fee for a player, arriving from Porto on a five-year deal.
The midfielder signed for the club in the aforementioned summer, with Hughes’ side finishing 13th in the table, 10 points clear of the relegation zone.
Giannelli Imbula’s underwhelming Stoke stint
Imbula did not live up to expectations after arriving from Porto, as he went on to feature just 26 times in the league for the club before departing after two seasons.
He contributed just two goals from just over 2,000 minutes of game time in the top flight before being loaned out to Toulouse in 2017.
The now 31-year-old spent two more seasons on loan, with Rayo Vallecano and Lecce, before having his contract terminated in 2020, with the team then competing in the Championship.
Given that the squad had only finished 15th in the second tier table, his departure was an indication of how far the team had slipped since his arrival.
Imbula’s career after leaving Stoke hasn’t exactly taken off either, which emphasises even more how pointless it was to sign him at the time and waste so many important resources.
Unfortunately for supporters, this was only the start of a trend, as Hughes’ team’s performance declined throughout 2017 as more wasteful players were brought in.
Stoke’s inability to make trades paid off when they acquired Kevin Wimmer and Saido Berahino.
After Hughes’ team underperformed the previous season, the acquisitions of Kevin Wimmer and Saido Berahino in 2017 were expected to provide more attacking potency and defensive stability.
After failing to establish himself in the Spurs first team on a regular basis, Wimmer was signed for an alleged £18 million by Tottenham Hotspur. The London team made a tidy return on the £4.3 million they initially paid for the Austrian.
In the meantime, West Brom paid an initial £12 million for Berahino, with add-ons that were undoubtedly never agreed potentially pushing the price up to £15 million.
The team’s £48.3 million acquisition of the three players turned out to be extremely costly, as they were demoted to the Championship in 2018.
For the Potters, Berahino and Wimmer appeared in the Premier League 13 and 17 times, respectively, with the former notching a goal.
The forward made just 23 more league appearances after being demoted, but he stayed with the team until leaving by mutual consent in the summer of 2019.
Wimmer, however, did not play in the Championship for the Potters at all. Instead, he transferred on loan to Hannover, a German team, and left as a free agent in 2021 after his contract was ended.
Three players who signed deals worth a lot of money and then went for nothing are the epitome of the riches that Stoke wasted at the end of their heyday in the premier league.
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