This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Josh Maja joined Stoke City on loan back in January and made 15 appearances between then and the end of the season scoring once and providing three assists. 

Michael O'Neill's side have been credited with an interest in signing him permanently this summer and although he's got one more season left on his contract at Bordeaux, the French club find themselves in financial troubles meaning it may be easier for the Potters to sign him for a lower fee.

Maja has done well in England before notably with Sunderland when he scored 14 goals in 24 League One appearances but his spell with Stoke at the start of the year wasn't groundbreaking.

Therefore, with that in mind, we asked FLW's Stoke City fan pundit Ben if he would like to see the 23-year-old return to the Bet365 stadium as he said: "Yeah I do and that might surprise a few people considering that he didn't score a lot of goals for Stoke.

"But, his presence in games became more and more so the more that he played in this Stoke City team that wasn't creating an awful lot of chances either in the second half of the season while Maja was here.

"We know that he's more of a poacher of a striker. He's not somebody that will make a chance on his own but he was so good at bringing other players into play when he was here and I think with players like Nick Powell back maybe a couple of other players added here and there, Maja could be a great signing for us.

"Of course he's a bit of a risk but you'd imagine with Bordeaux's financial difficulties, we might be able to get him a bit cheaper than we thought."

The Verdict: 

Josh Maja's spell with Stoke at the start of the year probably didn't go quite as well as he would hoping it would. However, it wasn't disastrous either and if you move away from the numbers of goals and assists he provided, he did put in some strong performances that helped other players become more involved too.

Furthermore, with Bordeaux's current financial position making it look as though they could pay a reduced fee for the player, that has to be a tempting reason to get it done as it reduces the risk of the transfer.

The 23-year-old has performed before and he clearly has talent, it's just about getting a solid run of games in a team that compliments him to allow him to show his best and a stable move to Stoke could allow him to do just that.