Stoke-on-Trent Live

Stoke City are using the loan market to add a sprinkle of quality that is difficult to bring in permanently at this stage in the club’s cycle, says Jon Walters.

Ash Phillips, aged 19, has today become the third loan signing of the summer as he signed up from Spurs. Forward Lewis Koumas, aged 18, has already joined from Liverpool while Andrew Moran, aged 20, has arrived from Brighton.

It has been seen as an important part of squad building and is intended to complement the Championship experience brought in via Ben Gibson, Sam Gallagher and Viktor Johansson or the signings of Eric Bocat and Bosun Lawal, who are playing in the division for the first time, as well as the players already in the building who are mostly just 12 months into their Stoke careers.

It will still be a busy final week of the window but there is hope that the ground work has been done to make sure the club pulls in the right direction over the next few months.

Walters said: “We’re conscious of the balance of the squad and the size of the squad, which were quite hefty on at the moment. If you look at players who are out injured and coming back in – and there should be a good number of players back between the September and October international breaks – we will have a large squad number. We did say last season it was too big and it becomes difficult for a head coach to manage, trying to keep everyone who is out of the team happy.

“But I think we’re in a good place with it. We’ve got some good experience and good hungry young players with huge ambitions.

“We’re quite lucky that some big clubs have trusted us with their players. We’ve got Lewis Koumas from Liverpool who has got a big future ahead of him. We’ve got Andrew Moran the same, Ash Phillips the same. We’ve got some good ones in there thanks to good links with clubs and hopefully they can add that little bit of quality that you wouldn’t normally get in our position as a club.”

He added: "We are building something here, we're not just looking at the short-term and players for the here and now that you have to go and spend ridiculous wages for and things like that. We're making long-term investments. I looked at a sheet the other day from May 2023 and there are only four players in the squad from that time who are still here, so that's a huge turnaround in players.

"There have been eight so far this window and you don't want to have a huge turnaround. We want to build something. The best thing is players who are about to just burst onto the scene or have the potential to go right to the top but can also make a huge impact in the Championship. We've got a good mix. We've got to get the balance of the squad right and having those experienced players in there as well but where we want to be as a football club is where those players want to be as well."

Centre-half Phillips came through the ranks at Blackburn and joined Tottenham last summer before spending the second half of the season on loan at Plymouth. He comes into the squad for tomorrow’s home match against West Brom (3pm).

Walters said: “We knew we were short in the centre-back position. We had Michael Rose out, we’ve got Ben Wilmot and Ben Gibson. We were waiting on Ash for a while, waiting on what Tottenham were going to do with him. We followed him last season at Plymouth, where he did really well and won young player of the year. I’ve watched him since he’s been very young at Blackburn before he went to Tottenham.

“He’s got a big future ahead of him and we’re happy that he’s chosen to select us rather than a few clubs that were in for him.”

Stoke City are believed to be working on a deal to sign England youth defender Ashley Phillips on loan from Tottenham.

Phillips, aged 19, came through the ranks at Blackburn Rovers but joined Spurs last summer for about £2 million and spent the second-half of last season on loan at Plymouth Argyle, after Steven Schumacher had left Home Park to take charge at Stoke.

He earned impressive reviews in the Championship and Stoke could get a deal done in time for him to be involved against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.

Steven Schumacher currently has captain Ben Gibson and Ben Wilmot as his first choice centre-halves while Michael Rose is hoping to be back fit from an ankle injury next month. Jaden Dixon and Freddie Anderson, both aged 17, have made their first team debuts this season.

Schumacher remained relatively coy about anything imminent when he was asked about transfers at his pre-West Brom press conference this afternoon.

He said: "I'm not sure if we'll get anything done before Saturday but (our transfer work) will go into the final week, yes. We've still got a bit of business to do - both ins and outs The sooner it's done, for me, the better, but like all these things seem to do they will go down to the wire. By 11pm on Friday night I hope I'll be in bed ahead of the Plymouth game!"

He added: "There's nothing to report today but I'm sure there will be some ins and outs over the next eight days. I can't wait for it to shut and hopefully we get the players who will do the business we need to do before it does and we can concentrate solely on the footy."

There will be exits but Schumacher will have no problem selecting players in his squad this weekend even if they know it might be for the final time.

He said: "Players are professional. We explain to everyone that while they're here, get on with it and give 100 per cent in training and be prepared to play. That's what players have done from Day One.

"As everyone knows, in football things change quickly and we need to be adaptable as well. If we can bring a new player in who comes into the team straight away then so be it and if we don't manage that and someone needs a couple of weeks to get to grips with what we're doing that'll be the case with that too. We're quite relaxed either way."

Congratulations to Freddie Anderson and Jaden Dixon on making their Stoke City debuts at the age of 17 this week, alongside fellow 17-year-old Sol Sidibe – and to Anderson for scoring too and to 18-year-old Emre Tezgel for getting his first Stoke goal from the bench.

The opposition may have been Carlisle United from League Two but the Carabao Cup is a good chance for clubs like Stoke, at this stage of the club’s cycle, to give talented lads like this a chance to show what they can do. If you’re really thinking you can win the cup then you wouldn’t be making so many changes but this was the right thing to do now.

A club which plans for the future has to keep the door open to 17-year-olds. It seems to me like a big part of what Stoke should be about right now.

Anderson came to Stoke from Manchester City at the age of 16 last summer because he saw a route to the first team. It would be a hard job for Man City to persuade me to sign a deal with them at that age because the door is all-but closed unless you’re going to be an international superstar – and even then you have to hit those heights very quickly.

It will have been the same for Jaden Dixon at Tottenham and Chinonso Chibueze, a winger who has joined the under-21s from Chelsea recently hoping he can make the same kind of swift progress to catch Steven Schumacher’s attention.

Parents will be looking for the right club for a player’s career and the players will be looking around at which clubs are giving opportunities. There are clubs who seem to stockpile kids to make sure that no one else can have them – and to make money as a business model, rather than footballers for themselves – won’t appeal to everyone. Do you want to spend years being sent out on loan?

Anderson is very tall and he’ll bulk out. He comes from strong stock with his dad, Viv, who was a supreme athlete. Modern managers would have loved Viv. He was decent with his link-up play and covered an exceptional amount of ground, hard to breakdown and quick to counter-attack. He was perfect for Brian Clough.

I’m not expecting this generation to immediately start 40 games this season but I hope their progress is not blocked by loan signings which have previously arrived just for the sake of signings. The likes of Sead Haksabanovic, Chiquinho, Bersant Celina, Tarique Fosu, Gavin Kilkenny have all come and gone in the last couple of years with little impact except to take up a space in the changing room that could have gone to one of our own.

I know it’s the way of the world in the Championship but it drives me mad. The loan market should be there only for superlative talent that you couldn’t otherwise afford, not just to pack out a squad. You end up replacing loans with loans, developing players for a year at a time, and going around in circles without getting anywhere as a club.

In an ideal world I’d like to see Schumacher pick his matches to test out Dixon and Anderson and the rest. They can get a taste in the cup and there will be times in the season when there are injuries and they are called upon but there should also be other matches here and there when you can drop them in. It gives them a test, motivates others by showing that you’re willing to give them a sniff and keeps the senior pros on their toes. That’s a healthy system.

Don’t underestimate how much it spurs on other kids who are coming through the ranks. You build a spirit. You could even tell after that Carlisle match how much that group was buzzing because they’d played and they’d won.

When I was their age I could look to the likes of Smithy and Jackie Marsh and they were great players in their own right but we were also coming through together. We were in it together, knowing it was our job, our responsibility, to take the club as far as we could take it.

So well done and good luck lads, keep it going and hopefully Stoke will make the right decisions to help you every step along the way.

It’ll be a good challenge for the first team too this afternoon at a Watford side who have scored two goals in their first two games, including a hat-trick from our old friend Tom Ince on Tuesday night.

They’re firing and it’s a good game to have at this stage of the season when the transfer window is still open. It’s not too late for the boss to just finalise his thoughts about what’s needed, what’s missing or who can be a big part of things over the next nine months.

Steven Schumacher says Stoke City want, plan and expect to build the team around Bae Junho and Wouter Burger as speculation about summer departures is all-but dismissed.

Playmaker Junho, aged 20, has been in the headlines in the Netherlands amid reports that he is of interest to Feyenoord while there have been whispers in England that midfielder Burger, aged 23, is on the radar of Tottenham Hotspur.

But it would take an extraordinary bid to loosen Stoke’s grip on player of the year Junho, with hope he will be able to maintain the trajectory of his progress. Burger is also not for sale as he is tasked with proving he can be a leading midfielder in the Championship.

AS IT HAPPENED: Crewe 1 Stoke 2

Schumacher said: “I’d just say to our fans that speculation is good, it shows that our players are doing something well but there’s been no bids for either of them.”

He added: “Absolutely (they are a big part of my plans), both of them are. They were brought here last summer and knew the first season was going to be a season for them to bed in and as the season went on both of those players got stronger, especially Junho. Then Wouter’s come back in brilliant condition in the off-season and his pre-season has looked really sharp.

“We want to build our team around our best players not lose them.”

Junho and Burger both started a 2-1 win for Stoke at Crewe Alexandra last night in their third friendly of the summer. There have been three signings so far – Viktor Johansson, Eric Bocat and Ben Gibson – all of whom started at Gresty Road.

There is more business to do and there will be exits for players who will need to move to secure the kind of game time they want but Stoke do not need to sell to meet Financial Fair Play constraints nor fund further arrivals.