"Willing to come" - Stoke City: Narcis Pelach drops exciting transfer claim and Norwich City, Borja Sainz reveal | OneFootball

Exciting times for supporters on Stanley Matthews Way, as their new boss was not discreet in his intent to propel Stoke City's recruitment potential.

Potters boss Narcís Pelach insists his connections can give Stoke City an advantage in the January transfer window, providing he has the financial backing to do so.

According to Stoke Sentinel, the Spaniard has a 'little black book' full of winter transfer targets, the quality of which he is hopeful of attracting, but would perhaps not normally be enticed to Staffordshire without the former Huddersfield man at the helm.

Joining the club in mid-September, leaving his post as a first-team coach of Norwich City, this will be Pelach's first window in charge of his new side.

Rubber-stamping his proactivity in the wake of an all-important winter window, he has reportedly held several meetings involving sporting director Jon Walters and the larger recruitment team in recent weeks.

Walters revealed that his continental colleague had been bringing some good names to the table, with Pelach himself stating targets include players who are ‘currently in a better league than the Championship’.

Pèlach has 'lots of names from Spain'

Speaking to Stoke Sentinel, the Potters boss spoke of his compulsory need to study players, a near-obsessive desire to gather a better idea of the talent, value, and potential of players both at the club, and further afield.

He said: “I like to see players, I enjoy this part of the game as well. I like to evaluate players. We do it in our team, in our staff, after every game. We put a mark for every player from zero to four, with two a normal performance, four very good and zero a very bad performance. You can go to 0.5 or to 0.75 too.

“We enjoy that with the staff. We do a description, we evaluate every player as we have a meeting for a couple of hours talking about every individual so that when we do the reviews we are all on the same page and we can be doing fair line-ups.

“Then I do the same with players that I see with other teams, I’ve been doing it for five years, and I have lots of names of course from Spain as well and other countries. Spanish players are another market – and they are cheaper than British players. That’s a little advantage for us!

“There are players we perhaps cannot afford now but I know that not everything is about money and there are players who are willing to come to Stoke City who are in better leagues than the Championship.

“I will talk to them, I will try to bring them if we can. Not everything is about money. We can do things in creative ways and we have to try to do this because financial rules don’t help us much. There are many teams with money so we have to find a creative way.”

Exciting times for supporters on Stanley Matthews Way, as their new boss was not discreet in his intent to propel Stoke City's recruitment potential with his knowledge and Spanish football connections.

Pèlach can clearly pick out a gem at this level

While without context this could perhaps be construed as an empty promise or even delusion, Pèlach has receipts regarding his ability to identify diamonds in the rough.

It was during his time at Norwich City that the Catalonian coach identified a certain Borja Sainz as an undervalued prospect.

The winger, whose 15 goals in 18 games make him the number one candidate for EFL Player of the season, was hiding away at lowly Turkish side Giresunspor, who had just been relegated to the country's second division.

Pèlach, who was in charge of coaching the attack at Carrow Road, insisted on Sainz's transfer, after trying to sign the winger previously.

"I wanted him in Huddersfield as well, so we tried to make a deal. But we couldn't do it in the end, and we made it in Norwich. He's a great player, a great human being, and we have a lot of love for each other," he stated.

This kind of scouting and knowledge, especially in the lucrative market of the Spanish lower divisions, represents a genuine and tremendous advantage held by Stoke City in transfer windows to come.