Stoke City midfielder Charlie Adam has revealed that losing Marko Arnautovic to West Ham United was one of the reasons the Potters were relegated last season.
Adam’s team collapsed from finishing 13th in 2017 to dropping down to the Championship in 2018, ending the campaign second last, and the Scotland international believes losing the Austrian in 2017 was key to their struggles.
“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things that accumulate over a couple of years,” he said, as per the Stoke Sentinel, when asked what led to Stoke’s relegation. “Losing Marko was a big thing for us.
“We never really replaced Marko. Marko for that 18 months was brilliant for us, he won us a game out of nothing. Then you expect other ones to step up to the mark and you never really performed to the level we should as a group, as well as individuals.”
OPINION
It’s always going to be difficult when you lose a player of Arnautovic’s quality. It’s easy for West Ham fans to forget amidst the current malaise surrounding the 29-year-old, but he is an unbelievable talent on his day. So when that ability is taken away from a team like Stoke it’s always going to be difficult for them to compete in the Premier League. Obviously when they then failed to replace Arnautovic they were in trouble. They needed to use the money they received from West Ham to replace the Austrian and improve the squad in other areas, as well, and they simply didn’t do that well enough. Obviously there are other factors that contributed to Stoke’s relegation, it wasn’t all down to Arnautovic leaving. But you have to say that he was a massive loss for the Potters. He was excellent for them in the couple of seasons before his West Ham move, that’s why the Hammers forked out for him in the first place. None of this is going to help Stoke now, though, of course.
