Stoke City are on the verge of a tug of war for in-demand Russian striker Fedor Smolov according to the latest reports. Smolov spent his youth career at Master Saturn Yegoreyevsk and Saturn Moscow. He joined Dynamo Moscow in 2007 and spent 8 years at the club.
During his time at the Arena Khimki, the attacker spent four seasons out on loan which helped him get the football education he needed to gradually improve his game. The results slowly began to show when he was at Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast. Deployed mostly on the left wing, the player scored 8 goals and assisted 2 more from 22 games in the Russian Premier League.
It is interesting to note that Dynamo Moscow didn’t renew the contract of the player despite his strong showing at Ural and let the player leave the club when his contract expired in 2015.
FC Krasnodar signed the then free agent Smolov and it proved to be the masterstroke as the player smashed the scoring record of the club in the RPL, banging in 20 goals with 7 assists to see his team finish 4th in the league, qualifying for the Europa League, where in the group stages they won all their home games, one of those being a memorable 1-0 win over German giants Borussia Dortmund.
This season, Smolov, who has now played extensively as a centre-forward, has struck 10 goals from 12 games in the Russian Premier League with an equally impressive 3 goals from 4 games in the Europa League.
The tremendous form of the Russian has sparked interest from both England and Germany. TalkSPORT claim that Stoke City and Wolfsburg are interested in the 26-year old while The Sentinel has reported that Stoke City and Borussia Dortmund are interested in him. A player who has developed his game admirably over the past few years and has managed to become the deadliest marksman in Russia, Smolov is a player who knows where the back of the net is.
A formidable finisher who can dribble past his opponents and has a hammer of a right foot, he certainly would be a great addition to the Stoke forward line. There are some things which need to improvement, however. Offside awareness and crossing the ball being some of those.
Nevertheless, considering his current form, Fedor Smolov would be a player worth taking on board for a club like Stoke, who are looking to bring the element of surprise into their game so that it is reflected in their final league position in the table just like last season.
