Tottenham warning should have been enough to deter Stoke City transfer: View | OneFootball

In the summer of 2017, Stoke City were a rather busy side when it came to transfers, as manager Mark Hughes was given sufficient backing.

The Potters were looking to push up the table, and one way they thought they could help do that was by being busy in the transfer window.

The club brought in lots of players that summer, including Kurt Zouma, Bruno Martins Indi, and Badou Ndiaye. But it was the purchase of Kevin Wimmer that was the most expensive and the one that had a cloud of why.

Wimmer joined Tottenham Hotspur in 2015, but his two years at the club were bitterly disappointing, so in 2017, when it was announced that Stoke had paid £18 million to secure his services, it screamed a mistake by the club after seeing what occurred with Spurs.

Kevin Wimmer’s time at Tottenham Hotspur

Kevin Wimmer started his career in his homeland of Austria, playing for LASK’s youth team and then the first team before joining German side FC Koln in 2012.

The defender spent three years with the German side, and it seemed his performances caught the eye of Tottenham Hotspur, as they signed the player in 2015 for £4.3 million.

Wimmer went from being a regular starter in Germany to becoming a squad player at Spurs, with the centre-back just playing 21 times in all competitions in his first campaign.

That then significantly decreased in the 2016/17 season, as Wimmer played just 10 times across all competitions Spurs were in.

The 31-year-old played just 15 times in the Premier League with the London side as he never seemed to fit in at the club, so in 2017, it didn’t come as a surprise that Spurs were looking to move him on. What was a surprise was that Stoke were willing to sign him and pay £18 million.

Tottenham spell should have been enough to stop Stoke buying Kevin Wimmer

So, as just mentioned, Kevin Wimmer’s spell with Tottenham was a disaster, and it was clear that Spurs must have thought they were going to get something different from what they actually got for them two seasons.

The Austrian just didn’t settle at Spurs, and that spell there should have been enough to stop teams in England looking at him and thinking about buying him.

But that didn’t happen, as Stoke felt they could get a better tune out of Wimmer than Spurs did, a decision that was very costly.

Wimmer may have been one of those players who just didn’t adapt to the English game, so most Spurs fans would have anticipated the player going back abroad.

So, when they saw Stoke were keen to sign the player and were willing to pay £18 million, the club and its supporters must have been rubbing their hands together.

It was a decision by Stoke that was very silly and very costly, as they spent that much money on the player only to fail once again.

Wimmer joined the Potters in 2017, and he was on the books until the summer of 2021, when he eventually left on a free transfer.

It came about pretty quickly that Stoke had made a huge mistake, as the player played just 23 times in all competitions in his first season. The following campaign, he was then shipped out on loan to Hannover 96, and then in the 2019/20 season, he joined Mouscron on loan.

Wimmer then spent the first half of the 2020/21 season with Stoke under-23s before joining Karlsruher SC on loan, and then it was that summer that he finally left the Bet365 Stadium.

In his first season at Stoke in the Premier League, Wimmer started 14 of the 17 games he played. During that time, he had a 22.8 (77%) pass accuracy per game and had collected 0.2 key passes, as per Sofascore.com.

While in defence, Wimmer helped the club keep just one clean sheet, as he made 1.8 interceptions and 1.4 tackles per game. That season, Wimmer finished with a Sofascore.com rating of 6.64.

It is clear that signing Wimmer was a big mistake, and whether that was down to manager Mark Hughes or the board, someone should have seen the situation he was in at Tottenham and realised this wasn’t the player for them.

However, poor management put the club in a situation where they had a player on their books for way too long as they couldn’t sell him, as he’d disappointed for a number of years. This was probably at the start, when Stoke’s poor decisions saw them drop into the Championship and then remain stuck there for a number of seasons.

It was clear before they signed Wimmer that it would be a costly mistake, but no one stood up and decided against a transfer that cost the club for a number of years and, in hindsight, was a waste of money.