Stoke City’s £7m Burnley FC pick-up was a complete flop | OneFootball

Sam Vokes struggled to ever make an impact in the Potteries after his move from Burnley

The abject failure that was Stoke's 2018 summer transfer window will be remembered for years to come, but they did not stop there in their bid to return to the Premier League at the first time of asking, as Burnley striker Sam Vokes joined in the January window for a sizeable fee but failed to ever find his feet and turned out to be a clear flop for the Potters.

Newly-appointed boss Gary Rowett embarked on a spending spree rarely seen in the second-tier ahead of the new Championship season, as the likes of Benik Afobe, Tom Ince, Peter Etebo, Sam Clucas and James McClean all arrived for large fees throughout the transfer window.

By January, though, it was clear that Stoke were struggling on their return to the second-tier with Rowett sacked and Nathan Jones as their new boss, and so they moved to add more attacking firepower as Vokes arrived from the Clarets in an initial £7 million part-exchange deal which saw club-legend Peter Crouch head to Turf Moor.

Vokes got off to a poor start in the Potteries, but showed signs of his previous goal-scoring prowess at times, yet his first full campaign saw him struggle to make an impact, and he soon fell behind the likes of Tyrese Campbell, Jacob Brown and Steven Fletcher as Stoke tried, and failed, to achieve Championship success.

The Welsh international left Stoke after just two-and-a-half years at the club in the summer of 2021 to join Wycombe Wanderers, and in doing so, called time on one of the worst periods of his career in football, while going down as another in a long line of flop strikers in ST4 over the last few years.

Sam Vokes never made a proper impact at Stoke

Vokes started his career at Bournemouth, then went on to play in the Premier League for Wolverhampton Wanderers before a 2012 move to Burnley saw him become a legend at Turf Moor.

The Southampton-born striker netted 62 goals in 258 appearances for the Clarets across six-and-a-half years with the club, while helping them win promotion from the Championship in both 2014 and 2016, so his Stoke switch in early 2019 certainly made sense on the face of things, especially given that makeweight Crouch also wanted to have one last hurrah in the top-flight.

Then 29-years-old, he signed a three-and-a-half year deal at the bet365 Stadium for an initial £7m, but got off to the worst possible start in red and white as he missed a first-half penalty on his debut in a 2-0 defeat away at Hull City.

He bagged his first goal for the club against Aston Villa in late February, but could only follow that up with two more league strikes for the rest of his first half-season, as Stoke came 16th in their return to the Championship under Nathan Jones.

Vokes began his first full campaign in the Potteries as third-choice striker under Jones, after the arrivals of Scott Hogan and Lee Gregory, but soon returned to the fold more regularly after the ex-Luton Town boss was sacked in November and replaced by Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill.

O'Neill handed Vokes a reprieve at the bet365 Stadium, and he repaid him with three goals and two assists in seven games, including his crowning moment at the club, a late winner against Sheffield Wednesday on Boxing Day, as the Potters moved away from the relegation zone.

He ended 2019/20 with seven goals in 41 appearances in all competitions, with just 18 league starts to his name, and despite a largely poor term, that season was still as good as it got for the 64-time Welsh international in his time at Stoke.

O'Neill moved to bring in the likes of Steven Fletcher and Jacob Brown ahead of Vokes' second full season at the club, which saw him fall even further down the pecking order and make just five Championship starts in 2020/21, with just the one goal in 34 appearances in all competitions across the whole campaign.

Stoke's play, and the intensity of the second-tier, had clearly moved past Vokes by the end of that season, so he left after two-and-a-half tough, unimpressive years at the bet365 Stadium to join Wycombe in July 2021 for an undisclosed fee that was almost certainly nothing close to the amount paid to Burnley in 2019.

Vokes has been a success in League One since his Potters exit

Despite dropping down a division to Wycombe, many Stoke fans could be excused for thinking that Vokes may even have struggled in League One at 31-years-old, given how his form and game-time had dried up so badly in the Potteries prior to his exit.

Vokes, however, has been a resounding success in his time at Adams Park over the last three years - his first season at the club was the most successful as he registered 17 goals and five assists in 50 games in all competitions, and they reached the play-off final but lost out to Sunderland at Wembley.

He has since gone on to play a key role in attack for the Chairboys over the last two seasons, and still features for them to this day, but has suffered from persistent injury issues this season.

Vokes admitted in an interview with Sky Sports last season that he jumped at the chance to join Wycombe in 2021, and that certainly looks like a good decision nearly four years on for both him and Stoke.

He was certainly not a player that downed tools at any point in his Potters career, or threw his toys out of the pram when he was out-of-favour, but given the hefty fee paid to Burnley, and the likely sizeable wages that he would have been earning at Stoke, he unfortunately does go down as one of the most notable flop signings in the club's recent Championship history.