The play-offs look likely to be out of reach for Stoke City this season but there's certainly been progress in 2020/21. 

Michael O'Neill seems to be building something in the Potteries and next season could be an entertaining one for supporters of the club, who will be dreaming of a return to the top flight at some point soon.

With that in mind, the summer window should be an interesting one.

The Potters weren't quite good enough last year and with O'Neill now looking to go one better than what will likely just be a top-half finish this term, there could be some exciting deals for fans to sink their teeth into.

Stoke haven't been afraid of splashing the cash in the past, particularly during their Premier League years, but those moves haven't always turned out positively.

We've scoured the records to highlight nine of their biggest transfer flops – let us know if you agree...

We start our list of transfer flops with Maurice Edu.

The American midfielder was far from the most expensive signing on this list but he was certainly a disappointment.

Plenty of players have made the transfer from the SPFL to the Premier League with aplomb – unfortunately for Stoke, Edu cannot be added to that list.

He played just 10 minutes of senior football for them, with his only appearance coming off the bench against Liverpool.

A large swathe of his time on their books spent out on loan before he joined Philadelphia Union permanently in January 2015.

Saido Berahino's place on this list is unlikely to be much of a surprise to any Stoke supporters.

The Potters paid £12 million West Bromwich Albion to sign the 23-year-old striker in January 2017 but – as has been well documented – his time at the Bet365 Stadium was difficult for both the player at the club.

Fallouts, off-field issues, and an eventual £2.5 million payout to release him from his contract overshadowed what good moments Berahino had for the Potters.

In a difficult few years for Stoke, the forward proved much more of a hindrance than a help and ended his time with them having scored just five times.

Another American import that didn't work out for Stoke, there was a fair bit of excitement surrounding Brek Shea when he arrived from FC Dallas in 2013.

It's fair to say that the versatile US international didn't live up to the billing and proved an ultimately disappointing acquisition.

A total of five senior appearances for Stoke sum up what would be a fairly forgettable transfer were it not for the excitement surrounding Shea when he first arrived.

A return to the MLS suited him, however, and he's rediscovered his form back in the US – featuring for the likes of Orlando City, Vancouver Whitecaps, Atlanta United, and Inter Miami.

£14 million is a lot of money and it's clear now that it was not well spent when Stoke signed Badou Ndiaye from Galatasaray in January 2018.

Arrivals late in the window often prove a disappointment and this one was no different, with the Potters scrambling to add some more quality as they battled for Premier League survival.

Ndiaye never really found his feet and scored just two goals and an assist in the second half of the 2017/18 campaign as Stoke were relegated.

It seems he wasn't interested in hanging around in the Championship as he headed out on loan to Galatasaray the following season.

He would make 13 appearances in the second tier the following season but didn't add much, it has to be said, and it was no surprise to see him leave in January 2020.

Not the biggest transfer fee on this list by a long way but Stoke did break their transfer record to sign Dave Kitson from Reading after their promotion to the Premier League in 2008.

The Potters paid £5.5 million for Kitson but, though he'd thrived for the Royals the previous season, he offered very little for his new club.

The next few years saw him leave on loan a few times, first to Reading and then to Middlesbrough, and despite a handful of goals in 2009/10, there will have been few Stoke supporters that were sad to see him go that summer.

It seems now that Tottenham and Daniel Levy were the only winners of the deal that saw Stoke pay a remarkable £18 million for Kevin Wimmer in August 2017.

Not only did they pay £18 million for the defender, but he also joined on a wage of £70,000-per-week (Sportrac) meaning that depending on how much of his salary loan clubs have paid, he could end up costing the Potters somewhere near £30 million.

That's a sickening amount for a player that has made just 19 appearances and never looked particularly convincing

Lest we forget, the Austrian centre-back remains on the Stoke books to this day, though he is on loan with Bundesliga2 club Karlsruher SC at the moment.

When Jese Rodriguez swept the winner in against Arsenal in August 2018, it seemed like Stoke may have done a very shrewd bit of business in bringing the winger in on loan from PSG.

But beyond that point, pretty much everything that could go wrong did.

His form fell away and he went AWOL after being allowed a spell away from the club due to personal issues.

Jese's return didn't make things much better either and he destabilised a dressing room already facing the pressures of a relegation battle before seeing his loan cancelled by the club.

It's not one that Stoke fans will think back on fondly.

The thing with Giannelli Imbula is that there were points when his talent and quality shone through at Stoke but for £18.3 million, there were nowhere near enough.

The club broke their transfer record to sign the midfielder in January 2016 but four years later they cancelled his contract by mutual consent, despite still having 18 months left on his deal.

Imbula certainly didn't show anywhere near enough in his 28 appearances for the Potters to justify being their most expensive signing of all time.

He proved a major disappointment and another example of a January signing going wrong for the club.

He may have been a free agent pickup but when you sign Michael Owen, no matter how late in his career, it's going to lead to a fair bit of excitement among fans.

That's exactly what happened in 2013 when he arrived at the Bet365 Stadium – a few months after being released by Manchester United.

Owen is certainly not the most disastrous signing on this list nor the most costly but he's deserving of his place nonetheless.

In all he made just nine appearances, playing a little under 150 minutes and scoring one goal, before calling time on his career.