Stoke City’s best assets will be up for grabs following a relegation from the Premier League and Xherdan Shaqiri will be the first one to go. Crystal Palace have expressed significant interest in the 26-year-old along with Everton and West Ham United who are also keeping close tabs.
Shaqiri is one of those top-flight stars who has managed to carve a major role for a relatively smaller club. He struggled to break into the Bayern Munich squad back when he signed with them in February 2012, appearing in 81 games over the course of his three seasons in the Bundesliga.
The Swiss maestro is one of the most defiant and yet classy characters in the world of football. Do not let the short 5 feet 6 inches figure fool you into thinking anything less of the attacker’s athletic ability.
Give him the ball and he will breeze past you nine times out ten. The 26-year-old was one of the most promising prospects to have come out of the FC Basel youth system. He is a 68-time Swiss international who shocked the crowd by scoring the equaliser against Poland in the 2016 Euro League with a bicycle kick.
It is a shame that he could never find his feet for more illustrious clubs even when he was sent out on loan to Inter Milan. However, the Yugoslavia-born winger has formed an identity in England and has proven to be worth the £12m Stoke paid for him back in 2015.
He has scored 14 goals and assisted another 14 in his 88 appearances for Stoke. 7 of those goals came this season alone and even with a side diseased with relegation concerns, he has been a standout performer.
The Potters are currently staged at the second-last spot of the points table and are 5 points adrift of safety. It will take a tremendous amount of effort from Paul Lambert and the City players to boost themselves out of the bottom three within the span of just 5 games.
If Stoke do make the drop to the Championship, it will a challenge for them to keep all of their star players. Shaqiri is far too good for the second division and will be able to fetch the Potters a decent amount of cash.
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At 26, he is well into the peak of his career and could a massive hit with a different outfit next season. Palace are in danger of losing Wilfried Zaha themselves and the Swiss could prove to be a worthy replacement.
