Stoke City academy chief Gareth Owen believes Connor Taylor's "outstanding" season at Bristol Rovers has helped enhance the young centre-back's leadership skills and improved his aerial ability.
Rovers are waiting patiently for Stoke to make a decision on the immediate future of the centre-back prospect who started 41 games for the Gas last season as they earned automatic promotion from League Two. Manager Joey Barton has openly admitted he'd love to take the 20-year-old back on loan, should he not be able to force his way into the first-team thinking at Stoke.
Potters manager Michael O'Neill reiterated last week that the plan is to take a look at Taylor over pre-season to see where exactly he fits in the centre-back hierarchy for 2022/23 and if it's best to hold onto him, or loan him out again, with League One the obvious destination.
