Stoke City should make divisive Emre Tezgel call in January on one condition | OneFootball

The Potters must offer Tezgel a route out on loan in the new year, but only if they give him a new contract

Stoke City look to be finding their feet under recently-appointed head coach Narcis Pelach, yet young striker Emre Tezgel has struggled for minutes since the Spaniard took over in September, and should be offered a loan exit in January on one condition.

The Potters endured a tough start under Pelach, but have lost just one of their last seven Championship games, with two consecutive wins for the first time this season in their last two outings, as the likes of Tom Cannon, Million Manhoef and Viktor Johansson lead the team up the second tier.

Stoke's striker woes have been well-documented in recent seasons, yet Cannon's summer loan capture looks to have solved those problems, with the Republic of Ireland international netting seven goals in his first 12 games in all competitions for the club so far this term, making him undroppable in Pelach's team going forward.

Fellow frontman Sam Gallagher has also impressed when he has been fit, while Niall Ennis, who looked to be on his way out of the club in the summer, looks to have been given a second chance by the Spaniard to prove his worth in consistent cameos off the bench in both league and cup.

That leaves 19-year-old Tezgel as the Potters' fourth strike option, and while he enjoyed a successful re-emergence onto the first-team scene under previous boss Steven Schumacher at the start of the campaign, his opportunities have been very limited since Pelach's arrival, yet he needs to play consistently at senior level at this stage of his development.

Stoke face a hurdle that they will need to get past to be able to loan Tezgel out in the new year though, as they must offer him a new deal, and hope that he signs it, given that his current contract is up at the end of this season.

Emre Tezgel has had limited game-time since Narcis Pelach's arrival

Burton-born Tezgel has been highly rated for a number of years as a youth striker, and he became the youngest player to ever play for Stoke when he made his senior debut in January 2022 at 16 years and 112 days old, while also reportedly attracting attention from some of the top clubs in England, such as Manchester United and Chelsea for his impressive exploits at youth level.

The England youth international went on to feature six times for the first team across the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons, but his progress soon became stop-start due to persistent muscle issues and the club's subsequent reluctance to push him too far into men's football at such a young age.

Tezgel returned to action for the Stoke under-21s late last year after a recurring injury had kept him sidelined, and joined MK Dons on loan in the January window to help with their play-off push, where he made just five league starts in his 17 appearances for the club, but registered three goals and assists each under Mike Williamson - a decent return for his first real foray into men's football.

Off the back of that impressive spell, he fully broke into the Potters' senior squad earlier this season and began to net at senior level consistently for the first time in his short career, with his first goal for the club coming in the EFL Cup first round against Carlisle United, and his second the opener in a 5-0 thrashing of Middlesbrough in the next round.

He was also handed starts in each of Stoke's first two league games of the campaign against Coventry City and Watford under Schumacher, yet has found minutes a lot harder to come by under Pelach, due to his understandable insistence to trust more senior players as he looks to find his feet as Potters boss.

The 19-year-old has played just 70 combined minutes in three substitute appearances since the Spaniard was appointed, with 35 of those when Stoke were 6-1 up against Portsmouth, while he has not even come off the bench for the last six games, with Ennis even preferred ahead of him right now amid Gallagher's injury concerns.

A potential loan move has to be explored for Tezgel in the new year, as it seems unlikely that he will force himself into the head coach's thinking for the rest of the campaign, especially if Stoke move to bolster their attack in January, which will surely happen.

Tezgel must sign a new deal ahead of a possible January loan exit

Stoke may well want to allow Tezgel to leave the club for a lower-league side for the second half of the season, yet they must only let him depart if he signs a new deal prior to the January window, with his current one set to expire at the end of the campaign.

The 19-year-old signed his first professional contract, a three-year deal, with the Potters in July 2022 after he had made his first-team debut at 16 years old just six months earlier.

It is imperative that the club tie him down to a new long-term deal as quickly as possible, as despite a loan exit seeming like the best-case scenario for both parties at this moment in time, he is widely seen as the future of Stoke's strike force, and has the potential to go to the very top, so they must keep hold of him while they can.

It is pretty clear to see that he is due to be a big part of Stoke's future, regardless of his exploits in this campaign, as is his long-time youth strike partner Nathan Lowe, who has been one of League Two's best strikers so far this term out on loan at Walsall.

Lowe, who is the same age as Tezgel and had a similar breakthrough last season with the Potters' first-team, has registered eight goals and four assists in 16 appearances in all competitions for the Saddlers to date this season, and his progress must surely be another huge reason as to why loaning out Tezgel in January makes so much sense for both him and Stoke.