Stoke City boss Michael O'Neill has spoken of the importance of the club bringing in the right players this summer, with the Potters manager discussing the upcoming transfer window with the Stoke Sentinel

The Championship club have seen their faint hopes of making the play-offs this term fade away, with their season now stuttering to an end as we approach the final round of fixtures in the second tier.

As a result of this, there is likely to be a lot of changes made at the Bet365 Stadium during the summer, with the club still seemingly keen on making a return to the Premier League as soon as possible under the stewardship of O'Neill.

Of course, it will be the Northern Irishman's first full campaign in charge in Stoke-on-Trent and as a result of this, he was quick to emphasise the importance of getting in the right players this summer:

“I think we’ve got a really good work ethic at the club at this minute in time and we need to bring the right players to the club to help us move forward again.

“In the second half of the season we’ve come up short too many times in too many games but I can’t think of too many games when we’ve been totally outplayed. Possibly Norwich away is the only one when I think we were against a different level of opposition and they’ve won the league."

Meanwhile, Stoke are preparing for their final league game of the season, as they travel to the South Coast to take on play-off bound Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium.

The Verdict 

It will once again be a big summer of change for Stoke as they seek to get a lot of unwanted players off their books as they continue to recover financially from falling out of the top flight just a few years ago.

The upcoming window provides O'Neill with a big chance to mould the current squad to fit his identity and as a result I do feel we will see a good few players coming in.

As a result of this, he is sure to want to trim his current side of it's unwanted members and there should be a big turnover of personnel.

They will be looking to be in and around the promotion places next season, so it's important that they get things right.