The £18 million Spurs transfer deal was costly for Stoke City overall: View
From Stoke City’s point of view, the 2017–18 season was anything but successful.
The Potters were getting ready for their tenth season in a row at the top of the English football league going into the season.
The club was able to make significant investments in several new players during the summer of 2017 thanks to the financial advantages that came with being in the top division.
But not every one of those acquisitions would pan out for Stoke City, which would prove to be extremely expensive in the end of the season.
Kevin Wimmer was one player who most definitely fit that description while playing in Staffordshire.
Stoke made a sizable payment for Kevin Wimmer.
In August 2017, it was confirmed that Wimmer had joined the Potters after playing for Tottenham for the previous two years.
Stoke reportedly paid about £18 million for the center-back, even though he had never been a regular for Spurs during his time there.
By doing this, the Austrian turned into one of the most costly additions to the team in history—and it would end up being costly in many respects.
Under former manager Mark Hughes, Wimmer was a constant in the Stoke lineup, frequently starting.
However, as the Potters fought relegation from the outset of the season, he found it difficult to make an impression with his performances and received some harsh criticism from the supporters.
In fact, the center back didn’t play again that season after Hughes was fired and Paul Lambert took over as manager in January 2018.
The new manager allegedly further exposed Wimmer’s issues at the team by placing him on a unique fitness regimen.
The center back’s exit from the team did come at the same time as some better defensive outings, but Stoke was unable to muster the offensive output necessary to keep themselves in the Championship.
Nevertheless, the Austrian’s situation at the Bet365 Stadium did not get any better despite dropping a division.
If anything, after the Potters were relegated to the English football league’s second division, things would only become worse in relation to this deal.
Kevin Wimmer did not participate in the Potters’ Championship game.
Wimmer moved quickly after Stoke’s relegation was officially confirmed, joining Hannover on loan for the 2018–19 season with a buyout option.
However, the club’s relegation to the German second division prevented the center-back from playing frequently enough to earn a permanent transfer.
As Stoke remains in the Championship, he would once more be loaned out for the 2019–20 season, this time to Mouscron in Belgium.
However, the pandemic caused the Belgian season to end earlier than expected, so Wimmer came back to the Potters and played with the Championship team for the first half of the 2020–21 campaign.
However, he did not make any more appearances for the team during that time, and in February 2021, he was once more sent out on loan to Karlsruher, a second-tier German team.
Wimmer’s affiliation with Stoke would virtually come to an end as his contract was mutually terminated in May 2021, allowing him to relocate to Rapid Wien in Austria.
Consequently, the defender’s tenure at the team came to an end, and the Potters had to pay £18 million for him to play 19 games during a season that
Following that, he was still on their roster for three more years while the team sat in the Championship, doing little to help them advance.
He would then leave the club for nothing after that, preventing them from getting any kind of return on their investment in him.
For all these reasons, Wimmer’s signing will undoubtedly rank among the most expensive in Stoke City’s history.
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