Stoke City’s Joe Allen has signed a new contract with the club.
Stoke City have secured a major deal today, as midfielder Joe Allen has surprisingly committed his future to the Potters until 2022.
The Potters suffered relegation to the Championship this peast season, bringing their 10-year Premier League stint to an end, and also parting ways with manager Paul Lambert.
Gary Rowett has come in as his replacement, and after signing Benik Afobe and Oghenekaro Etebo, Stoke have secured arguably their biggest summer deal so far.
Midfielder Allen – a vital cog of the Stoke team since signing from Liverpool in 2016 – has penned a four-year deal with the club, tying his future to the Potters until 2022.
Allen, 28, had been expected to return to the Premier League, but the Welshman will be playing in the Championship next term – and that may spell the end of Celtic’s hopes to land him.
The Mirror recently reported that Celtic were keen to bring Allen to Scotland, potentially reuniting him with his former Swansea and Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers.
Rodgers has been linked with Allen repeatedly since taking the Celtic job, but Allen’s new contract may just mean that the Bhoys boss has to accept that a reunion is becoming more and more impossible.
Stoke can now charge a huge price for Allen with the protection of his new deal, a fee most likely beyond Celtic even with the Champions League money, whilst Allen will be 32 by the time his deal ends.
Rodgers may not even be Celtic manager in 2022, and whilst a reunion made sense once upon a time, it now seems that Rodgers and Allen may never work together at Celtic after today’s shock news.
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