The era of Financial Fair Play means particularly careful budgeting decisions for Stoke City and it's clear that they've been prepared to focus their muscle in the loan market this summer.
Tom Cannon, Andrew Moran, Lewis Koumas and Ashley Phillips had a lot of interest from across the Championship over the last few months and the players and their parent clubs could afford to be picky about where they were sent. Those parent clubs wanted them close at hand for most of pre-season too.
So Stoke had to be patient to get these deals over the line, they had to offer a package that could see off rivals and they had to sell the bet365 Stadium as the place to be this season. In the mean time, other long-list targets were making moves, the season kicked off and deadline day drew nearer.
Time will tell how much impact they can make from now until May but here and now, in the first week of September, there is at least optimism that they all improve the squad and will be fun to watch. It is a change in philosophy from signing players on loan who Stoke mostly thought they may have a chance to make permanent - but ended up largely being all-too forgettable changing room fillers. Quick quiz: how many of the 17 (seventeen!) loanees that have been at Stoke over the previous two seasons can you name in the next minute? Answers below.
There were big decisions through the window for Stoke, starting with the call to release Tyrese Campbell. That set the tone for the moves that came much later on with exits sanctioned for Josh Laurent, Lewis Baker, Daniel Johnson and now Ryan Mmaee too. “I felt at the end of last season that for us to move forward I needed to freshen things up," said Steven Schumacher.
Young loanees, pathways for academy graduates and backing the younger players from last season to play bigger roles this time around makes for a dramatically different age profile. Hence the youngest starting XI in Stoke's history last week in the Carabao Cup, then something similar on Saturday in the Championship.
.It all leads to us asking what they've got right, what you're worried they might have got wrong and, ultimately, what your hopes are now deadline has come and gone.
Here is our big post-transfer window state of the nation survey if you can take a couple of minutes to take part and thanks in advance.
And oh yes, here are all those loan signings from the last two seasons. How many did you remember?
Stoke loan signings in 2022/23 and 2023/24: Harry Clarke, Gavin Kilkenny, Will Smallbone, Tariqe Fosu, Liam Delap, Dujon Sterling, Matija Sarkic, Bersant Celina, Ben Pearson, Axel Tuanzebe, Ki-Jana Hoever, Chiquinho, Mark Travers, Luke McNally, Sead Haksabanovic, Daniel Iversen, Luke Cundle