Stoke City manager Tony Pulis is hopeful of strengthening his squad over the next few days, during which he will also be required to ready the player’s currently at his disposal for the 2nd leg of the Potters Europa League tie against Hajduk Spilt, Goal.com has reported.
As Stoke prepare to fly out to Spilt aiming to convert a 1-0 1st leg lead into an aggregate victory on Thursday night, they will do so with a squad which by Pulis’ own admission requires reinforcements. “We are threadbare at the moment. Hopefully we can bring in one or two players over the next few days,” said Pulis who has so far this summer only been able to add Jonathan Woodgate to his senior playing staff.
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Stoke’s failure to supplement the signing of Woodgate is certainly not for the want of trying however. The club have reportedly endeavoured to sign Scott Dann and Cameron Jerome from Birmingham in a joint deal but as yet have not had any success in doing so. Whilst Pulis is thought to maintain an interest in capturing the Birmingham duo, he is also reported to have identified other potential transfer targets, two of which include Arsenal’s Nicklas Bendtner & South Korean Internationalist Kim Bo-Kyung. Indeed if reports from Goal.com are to be believed the highly rated 21 year-old midfielder Kim, will be watched by Stoke scouts when he represents South Korea against Australia in a friendly to be held in Japan on August 10th.
With regards to the Bendtner link, the Telegraph have reported Pulis is considering a would-be club record bid of £9m for the Danish International, after reportedly holding talks with the player’s representatives over the past weekend.
Whatever the outcome of any pursuit by Pulis of the players mentioned, the Stoke manager believes a revision of the club’s general recruitment methods is required by saying: “The biggest thing we have to do as a club is improve our recruitment from the lowest level right through to the top level.”
