Tariqe Fosu arrived on loan at Stoke City from Brentford this summer, bolstering the attacking department at the bet365 Stadium. 

Brentford initially signed the winger back in 2020 and in the 2020/21 season from Oxford along with Shandon Baptiste and he established himself as a core part of the side making 41 league appearances playing his part with four goals as the club achieved promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs.

However, once the club were in the top flight, Fosu quickly fell out of favour and made just one Premier League appearance last season.

Therefore, a loan move back to the Championship was sanctioned this summer and the 27-year-old joined Stoke City this summer after the start of the season.

Fosu has been a regular member of the Potters this season under Alex Neil and has been used in a variety of positions so far. He's been deployed on the left and right wing, as well as left and right wing-back showcasing the versatility he showed at Brentford.

However, he hasn't been able to showcase his best form just yet with Stoke struggling for consistency themselves.

Whilst Fosu has played 18 games so far this season, including 12 starts, he has registered just one assist and is yet to score. In addition, he averages just 1.1 completed dribbles per game, and 0.8 key passes according to WhoScored suggesting his creative credentials aren't quite getting into gear.

It has been helped that Jacob Brown, Liam Delap and Dwight Gayle have some of the worst conversion rates when it comes to chances this season, but you would expect more from Fosu who played with freedom and creativity at Brentford in their promotion year.

Alex Neil has admitted in the past that he's struggling to find his best team and is unable to play his favoured formation of 4-3-3 due to Fosu being his only natural winger, and this may have contributed to Fosu's below-par form as well.

“If I had the appetitive to go to a 4-3-3 we don’t have any wide players really. We have Tariqe Fosu, who is arguably the one wide player we’ve got in the squad. Beyond that, the rest are really wing-backs or full-backs. In that respect, it becomes more difficult."

Fosu may well be playing for his future at Stoke considering it's unlikely that he will be staying at his parent club Brentford past the summer.

The 27-year-old's contract is due to expire this summer according to Transfermarkt, meaning this is the prime time for him to put himself in the shop window for a permanent move to Stoke or elsewhere.