Stoke City have had a real go at the continental experiment, but the signing of Bojan Krkic hasn’t clicked and it’s difficult to see how he will be part of future plans at the Bet365 stadium.
Stoke City’s Bojan Krkic celebrates scoring for Stoke City
Clubs on the continent are well aware of the loan spell that Bojan Krkic has completed with Mainz 05 earlier this year, but Stoke City are making a big thing of trying to welcome him back to the fold. And the club’s Chief Executive, Tony Scholes, has explained how the striker could be a major player for Mark Hughes’ side next season, “Bojan will return to us in July [after his loan spell at Mainz] and who knows? Bojan might be an absolutely key player for us next year,” Scholes told the Stoke Sentinel.
“Bojan, on his day, is as good as there is. He was a really important player for us. Perhaps he has had his best days prior to his injury, best days for us that is,” added Scholes.
Stoke City’s Bojan Krkic celebrates scoring
Krkic came to Stoke with great ambitions to play in the Premier League, but it is a relationship that appeared to have turned sour. Things started to go wrong for Krkic when he was injured in an FA Cup Fourth Round tie at Rochdale in 2015. That cut short his 2015-16 season, and the player has struggled to find any consistent form in the Premier League since then.
In his first season at the club he only scored four goals in 16 appearances with one assist, while in the 2015-16 season he managed seven goals and one assist in 27 games. Last season he was shipped out to Mainz on loan, where he only scored one goal and endured a relegation battle.
Stoke City’s Bojan Krkic celebrates scoring a goal with Jonathan Walters
Holding off the pack of likely pursuers of the 26-year-old, who may be considered by some to be better than his count of one goal in 11 for Mainz would suggest, might need more than a few words from the Potter’s chief executive. Krkic has only been at Stoke City for two years of his four-year deal signed in July 2014, but it looks increasingly like he won’t see out his contract. Despite his great start and the club, and undoubted potential, Bojan’s record is surely not good enough.
Whether Mark Hughes will really welcome Bojan Krkic back into the fold, as suggested by the Independent will probably depend on what transfer targets the Welshman has, and whether he really feels that Krkic can score 15 or more goals in the Premier League – something he has never done to date in his career.
It looks like time is up on Bojan’s time in England with Stoke City, although the man himself has not given up on completing his contract and playing again in next season’s Premier League.
“I have a contract in a club where the fans show me a lot of love and I’m relaxed about my future. I will talk to the club and see what they have to say,” he was quoted as saying in the Independent last month.
Is Stoke City’s Bojan Krkic off to La Liga?
A move back to Spain looks most likely with Girona FC heading the running, as reported by Mundo Deportivo and Real Sociedad, Sevilla, and Valencia among others also possibilities, according to the Daily Mirror.
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