Republic of Ireland U21 international Will Smallbone has joined Stoke City on loan from Southampton on a season long loan.
The 22-year old has spent his entire career with The Saints, and despite leaving on loan, is expected so sign a new deal with the Premier League club imminently.
The Irish star made seven appearances last season after recovering from a serious knee injury that kept him out of action for over nine months. This morning, Smallbone took to Twitter to express his delight at joining The Potters.
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"Buzzing to join Stoke City for the season"
"Looking forward to getting out there!"
Smallbone has been in superb form over the last few months and has emerged as one of the star players in Ireland's U21 side who recently secured a world cup play-off spot against Israel at Tallaght in six weeks time. The 22-year old, who has been capped 12 times at underage level for Ireland, impressed many during Southampton's preseason tour of Austria.
The U21 star becomes Stoke's seventh signing of the season and could line up in midfield alongside fellow Irish u21 star Gavin Kilkenny. That's not the only U21 connection, Jim Crawford's assistant John O'Shea has also joined the club as a coach in the past couple of days.
Speaking about the signing of Smallbone, Stoke boss Michael O’Neill said: “Will is another creative player; he’s an attacking midfield player who can play as a 10 and as an eight.
“We have an injury situation with Nick Powell so we felt that we needed something in that area.
“John O’Shea knows him extremely well and the opportunity to do it was there. He’s an exciting player that I think the fans will like – he scores and makes goals and it was good to get that over the line.”
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