The 4 Stoke City players likely to never play for the club again | OneFootball

Steven Schumacher will soon be assessing his Stoke City squad ahead of the 2024/25 campaign, and certain players look unlikely to figure in his plans.

The Potters have endured another tough campaign in the Championship and had to wait until the penultimate game to secure their safety for another season with a 1-0 win at Southampton.

Schumacher was appointed as head coach in December after Alex Neil was relieved of his duties and will take on his first summer transfer window at the club in the coming months.

It is not set to be as busy a window as last year when Stoke signed 13 permanent first-team players and five loanees, as well as allowing 11 players to leave the club.

But it will be crucial that the right profile of player is brought through the door and that the club does part ways with those that have offered little during their stay in the Potteries as they look to achieve a first top-half finish in the Championship since relegation in 2018.

With that in mind, these are the four players that we think are unlikely to pull on a Potters shirt again in their career.

Wesley Moraes

Brazilian striker Wesley has not had the best few years since his £22 million move to Aston Villa from Club Brugge in 2019.

His time at the Villans did not go as he would have hoped, as he picked up a cruciate ligament tear and a knee injury in consecutive years, restricting him to just 26 appearances and six goals for the club.

Despite having a year left on his Villa contract, he joined the Potters for free on a one-year deal last summer in a bid to revive his career.

This season has seen him unable to find the back of the net for Stoke, and he has had very limited game-time despite his fellow strikers also struggling for goals.

Despite showing some signs of his ability, with goal involvements against Leeds United and West Brom, he has failed to impress at the bet365 Stadium and has been used even more sparingly since Schumacher's arrival in December.

With that said, a contract renewal does not look likely for the 27-year-old.

Ciaran Clark

Veteran centre-back Clark joined Stoke in October after leaving Newcastle United in the summer following the end of his contract on Tyneside.

At 34, Clark is one of the most experienced players in the Potters squad, but the former Republic of Ireland international has been unable to force himself into the team under Alex Neil or Schumacher despite the lack of depth in his position.

He has found playing-time hard to come by, and is set to leave the club having only signed terms until the end of the season.

A possible professional retirement may be on the cards for Clark, and he was recently announced as a player in a $1 million seven-a-side summer soccer tournament in the United States this summer.

D'Margio Wright-Phillips

Football runs in the blood for D'Margio Wright-Phillips, with grandad Ian and father Shaun both former England internationals, and he made his first steps into the professional game with Stoke in 2022 after joining from the Manchester City Academy the previous year.

He scored on his second start for the club against Fulham, but only appeared sporadically at the end of the 2021/22 season under Michael O'Neill and start of the 2022/23 season under Alex Neil.

An unsuccessful loan at Northampton Town in the second-half of last season did not thrust him back into Neil's plans, and after starting this season playing in the Stoke U21 side, he was loaned out to Beerschot V.A. of the Belgian second division in the January window.

He netted an impressive four goals in 11 league appearances as Beerschot clinched promotion back to the top-flight, but his contract is up this summer at Stoke and it seems unlikely that he will be kept on.

Tom Edwards

Once a highly-rated youth prospect flying through the Potters' ranks, it has been a sad decline for Tom Edwards' Stoke career since his breakthrough in 2018 whilst the club was still in the Premier League.

The right-back has gone on to play 51 times for Stoke, but has not made a competitive appearance for his boyhood club since January 2020, and has been loaned out to New York Red Bulls, Fleetwood Town and Barnsley over the last three seasons in an attempt to rekindle his form.

He joined Huddersfield Town on loan at the beginning of this season with a point to prove, but has not nailed down a starting berth in a turbulent season for the Terriers as they were relegated from the Championship.

Now 25, Edwards' contract at Stoke is up in the summer, and he will surely be looking for a new permanent home for the first time in his career.