Who remembers when Stoke City could call upon players like Bojan Krkic, Xherdan Shaqiri, Ibrahim Afellay and Jese Rodriguez? When Marko Arnautovic, one of Europe’s most innately talented attackers, called the Potteries home.
It was a mad period during which the then-Britannia Stadium was known as an ideal landing spot for players leaving some of the world’s biggest clubs. Bojan turns 33 on Monday, and his name remains synonymous with a time of great opportunity under Mark Hughes.
Perhaps this was one of the signs that the Premier League was beginning to outgrow the rest of Europe. Players no longer looked solely at the traditional giants across the continent, they also considered joining this mid-table English side managed by a man in Hughes who himself had played at two of the world’s behemoths in Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
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Hughes’ predecessor, Tony Pulis, had dabbled with a softer variation of Hughes’ vision. He had given Maurice Edu the chance to finally fulfil his potential at the top level but the American would see only 10 minutes of first-team football in Stoke-on-Trent. There were last shots at the big time given to former England striker Michael Owen and trouble ex-Arsenal and Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant.
But when Hughes took over in the summer of 2013, he went about adding a new flair to Stoke City’s dressing room. Erik Pieters from PSV was a solid addition, while Marc Muniesa’s arrival from Barcelona came thanks in part to the defender having spent the previous year out of action with an ACL injury. When Arnautovic was snapped up for just £2 million from Werder Bremen it was the first real splash.
Even then, people saw the Austrian as damaged goods to an extent. His former boss Jose Mourinho had said of Arnautovic during his loan spell at Inter Milan that he had “the attitude of a child” and his Bremen skipper Torsten Frings claimed him to be “arrogant”. When he and a team-mate were caught speeding and suspended, his days at the Weserstadion were numbered, so Stoke wasn’t a ridiculous next step.
But Bojan’s signing from Barcelona for just £1.5m the following summer felt like a bolt out of the blue, and Hughes knew it was a statement move. “Anyone who knows European football will be aware of him as a player, and the fact he sees his future at Stoke City is really exciting,” he said upon landing the Spain international. Up until arriving at the Brit, Bojan had played for Barca, Roma, AC Milan and Ajax. Stoke’s name was not a natural fit in such esteemed company.
He might not have gone on to push Stoke City towards Champions League football, indeed his spell with the club would end in the Championship, but what he did do was make the Potters a viable proposition for more and more players with a point to prove.
Joselu, now back at Real Madrid on loan and getting minutes, had left the Santiago Bernabeu looking for recognition and had gained moderate game time in Germany. Next stop Stoke.
Ibrahim Afellay, like Bojan a sparky attacker finding his route to the Barcelona first team blocked by bigger names – in his case Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez, was another to arrive in ST4. Shaqiri followed within days, his initial successes at Basel having not materialised into the superstardom some predicted with Bayern and Inter.
Giannelli Imbula’s £18m signing was seen as the first real sign of what the club could achieve off the back of holding out the rope to those looking to rebuild careers. The 25-year-old was arriving with a great reputation from his Marseille days which had been only partially sullied by an inability to settle in at Porto.
But that’s where things started to fall away for Stoke. By the time Jese was added following a flat first season with Paris Saint-Germain, the Potters were much changed. None of Arnuatovic, Joselu, Bojan, Imbula or Muniesa were part of their squad for 2017-18 and Jese was no longer the superstar youngster who had broken through at Real Madrid only for injuries to badly affect his progress.
A poor season followed, Mark Hughes was dismissed in January and Stoke were heading to the Championship after 10 years living the dream with a squad punctuated with some of the most talented stars on the continent.
And it is Bojan whose presence is so often cited as the greatest example of what Stoke City became during that time. Eighty-five appearances and 16 goals in five years, with two loan deals and one relegation thrown in, doesn’t really tell the story of the excitement and possibility his and other signings generated for a club which for too long had been ‘that club Stanley Matthews played for’ and little more.
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