Stoke City may wish Norwich City chase had come off: View | OneFootball

Stoke City are facing a nervous end to the Championship with just three games still to be played.

Following their 1-1 draw with relegation rivals Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough on Saturday afternoon, the Potters currently sit 20th in the standings, three points clear of the bottom three.

It has been a challenging campaign throughout for the Staffordshire outfit and it is one which has never really got going at any point, having not won back to back games since October.

While there are many things that have not worked out for Stoke over the course of the campaign, it could be argued that one place where the club themselves have not got things right, is in the transfer window.

Stoke City did some costly transfer business in the 2023-24 season

The summer transfer window was undoubtedly a busy time for the Potters. By the time that market closed at the start of September, a total of 17 new players had been added to the squad.

However, many of those moves have not gone in the way those connected with the club would have hoped.

New signings have either not been up to standard, or have struggle to gel or adapt since arriving at the club.

All of that has contributed to the problems Stoke have endured this season, and may lead to questions as to just why so many different players were brought in, from so many different areas, during the summer.

But despite that, there is one signing Stoke did not make this season, that could have changed their prospects significantly, had it been completed.

Stoke City may wish that they'd have landed Norwich's Abu Kamara in January

After such a busy summer window, the club then added four more players to their squad during the January market.

However, one signing the Potters did not complete in that period was that of Norwich City attacker Abu Kamara.

The 20-year-old joined Portsmouth on loan back in the summer window, but was linked with a potential move to Stoke back at the turn of the year.

Ultimately though, no move to take him to the Bet365 Stadium emerged, and instead the Norwich loanee has remained at Fratton Park for the rest of the season.

By doing so, Kamara has played a big part in the squad that now look set to earn a long-awaited return to the Championship for Portsmouth, who have now secured promotion back to the Championship as League One title winners.

In total, the attacker has scored eight goals and provided 10 assists in 44 league appearances for Pompey over the course of the campaign.

With that in mind, the addition of Kamara back in January, could have been a major boost to Stoke's hopes of survival.

Stoke have scored 41 league goals so far this season, with only QPR (40) and the current bottom two, Sheffield Wednesday (36) and Rotherham United (32) finding the net less frequently in the Championship.

Bringing in someone like Kamara, who evidently has the ability to both score and create goals, could therefore have been something of a game-changer for Stoke.

Had the 20-year-old been able to make the sort of contributions for them as he has done for Portsmouth, those extra goals he could have provided, may have helped the Potters pick up some useful extra points, that might have seen them pull clear of the bottom three.

As it is, there would be no huge surprise to see Kamara get his chance for Norwich next season if they do not win promotion to the Premier League, given the attacker has shown he is ready to step up to the next level during this stint in League One.

With that in mind, it seems that in a season where Stoke City may have made signings than they needed to, not getting a deal done for Kamara could still go down as an opportunity missed, both for this season, and the future.