Stoke City legend Ryan Shawcross believes the club should be focusing on recruiting a winger or two before the end of the transfer window, as he wrote a column for the Stoke Sentinel.
Another position that the Potters wanted to address this summer was the forward department, with Sam Vokes and Lee Gregory's time at the bet365 Stadium coming to an end this summer and 34-year-old Steven Fletcher as their main option up top.
In their quest to fix this problem, they announced the £5.5m signing of former AFC Bournemouth man Sam Surridge on Wednesday and are also reported to be closing in on a loan deal for Manchester City's Liam Delap, with father Rory being a key part of Stoke's coaching staff.
With this position set to be fully bolstered, another area of the field that could be lacking in quality shortly is on the wing. Former key players James McClean and Tom Ince are both set to leave the club before the end of August after being deemed surplus to requirements in Staffordshire.
Although first-team coach Rory Delap recently talked up the latter's chances of getting back into manager Michael O'Neill's plans, they were both were left out of the first team's pre-season trip to Northern Ireland.
With this, former centre-back Shawcross has urged the Northern Irish manager to focus on bringing in a couple of wide men. In a column for the Stoke Sentinel, he said: "If you look at the success we’ve had in the past it was because of the flair players like (Ricardo) Fuller, (Marko) Arnautovic, (Xherdan) Shaqiri.
"Tyrese (Campbell) offers that but it looks like he won’t be ready for a while and you can’t go into the year relying on him.
"It was clear that was something the manager wanted to address. It’s the area that’s most important. It’s also difficult because they’re also the most expensive players and Stoke are obviously strained by Financial Fair Play.
"So it’s good to see a deal over the line for Sam Surridge and that it’s done now rather than wait until deadline day.
"With him and Steven Fletcher and Campbell coming back, there are some solid strikers there. Hopefully one of them can go on to get us 15 or 20 goals.
"And if the strikers are ready, we’ll probably look to try to add a winger or two now. I still think there is a bit of business to be done in that area and the focus will be on wide players."
The Verdict:
Many Stoke City fans are likely to be in agreement with Shawcross here. Although Ince's £10m move to the bet365 Stadium back in 2018 clearly hasn't worked out, he's still a top-quality winger alongside a very capable McClean.
They do need to freshen things up though after three mediocre seasons back in the Championship, something they have done in the forward position by bringing in Surridge for Vokes and Gregory - and should now be doing the same out on the wing.
Surridge might be a talented striker, but he needs the service to succeed. If they can recruit a couple of exciting wingers to complement the creativity of Nick Powell and Mario Vrancic in the middle, they could go far next term.
No one should be ruling out a play-off spot for the Potters at this stage, because they've brought in a decent replacement for Nathan Collins in Ben Wilmot at the back and are now looking a lot more creative and threatening going forward.