6 Premier League managers under pressure this season

#4 Mark Hughes – Stoke City

Kurt Zouma could prove to be one of the signings of the summer with his loan move

Not a name that many would consider to be under serious pressure but there is an opinion that Stoke have stalled with their progress in recent seasons. ‘Sparky’ is the third longest manager in the Premier League at the moment and after an extremely average season last time, he might just be looking over his shoulder.

What would really concern the Stoke fans and maybe even Mark Hughes is the form of the Potters against the clubs that perhaps they should be really be beating. We all know how hard that Stoke can be to play against in terms of physically and how direct they can play especially against the bigger clubs. But against the ‘smaller’ teams, they seem to switch off more often than not and do not produce the standard expected.

Expect Stoke to be safe and the position of their Welsh manager Mark Hughes to be fairly comfortable but the club cannot stall this season. The loan signing of Kurt Zouma and the expected permanent signing of Bruno Martins Indi will be huge for the team and Hughes will be delighted have such quality in front of the fully fit future England number one goalkeeper Jack Butland.

The sales of Glenn Whelan, Jon Walters and Phil Bardsley represents that Hughes is looking to bring a more vibrant feel to the club. Losing Arnautovic might also help as we only seen his quality in bits last season. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting joining the club on a free transfer might turn out to one of the signings of the summer.

The narrow defeat away to Everton on the opening day will not be a huge surprise for Stoke and the players. Perennially slow starters, they need to buck up after the opening day loss and reverse the trend.