£35k-a-week flop will hate Stoke City's Luke Graham transfer chase | OneFootball

Stoke City defender Ben Gibson will not welcome the news of the Potters' interest in Dundee defender Luke Graham

Stoke City have begun preparations for their ninth consecutive year in the Championship, and next time around, they will be hoping to finally have a season of positivity after a decade of decline and stagnation.

As Stoke continue to fail to finish in the top half of any league they are in, each summer window becomes bigger than the last.

Indeed, it was in 2016 when the Potters last finished in the top half, recording a ninth-place finish in the Premier League, their third in a row, but since then, the club has suffered a demoralising decline and subsequent stagnation.

Mark Robins has come under pressure in his role, after a promising start to the campaign just gone was wiped away with a torrid run of form in the second half of the season, with Football League World having exclusively revealed that the club were eyeing up other options in case of his departure.

As it stands, Robins remains in charge heading into the next campaign, but the pressure will still be mounting on the 56-year-old to get things right next year.

This summer window, as ever, is huge for the Potters, in terms of incomings and outgoings, and links with a youth international defender could spell bad news for a certain Stoke player.

Stoke City's interest in Dundee's Luke Graham could be bad news for Ben Gibson

Across a good portion of the season, despite their subsequent drop off in form, Stoke maintained the best defensive record in the league.

They would eventually lose that record as we approached the latter stages of the campaign, but given it was predominantly much of the same back five, including the goalkeeper, that had shipped the second-most goals the season prior, Robins and his staff deserve a huge amount of credit.

Injuries to each of Viktor Johansson, his replacement Gavin Bazunu, as well as Junior Tchamadeu, Ben Wilmot, Maksym Talovierov, Bosun Lawal, Eric Bocat, Aaron Cresswell, and Ben Gibson disrupted that solidity as the Potters became increasingly fragile as a result.

Ashley Phillips has returned to Tottenham Hotspur from his loan, with no indication as yet that a third spell is on the cards, leaving a gap in the heart of defence, which Stoke are seemingly looking to fill with the acquisition of Dundee defender Luke Graham, according to Alan Nixon via Patreon.

Graham, 22, is a left-footed centre-back who has starred north of the border with Dundee this campaign, making 41 appearances across all competitions and attracting interest from elsewhere, including the likes of Rangers, Norwich City, and Portsmouth, as well as Stoke.

Nixon also states that Stoke may go as high as £1.5 million to get a deal over the line ahead of their rivals, which could be bad news for Ben Gibson, who looks increasingly likely to be out of favour once again next season.

Gibson, 33, was thrust into action out of the cold by Robins as January rolled around and with injuries piling up, playing in an unfavoured left-back role occasionally and performing admirably.

Despite this, Gibson's game time has been severely limited since Robins arrived in January 2025, making just 16 league appearances for the former Coventry boss in the past 18 months.

Having signed a three-year deal upon his arrival in the summer of 2024 on an estimated £35k per week, as per Capology, Gibson has become an expensive problem for the Potters.

He was behind each of Wilmot, Lawal, Phillips, and Talovierov in his favoured centre-back role this season, and behind both Cresswell and Bocat at left-back, with that unlikely to improve moving forward.

Should Graham join, Gibson's game time will almost certainly decrease even more, likely leaving him out in the cold for good.

With one year remaining on his current deal in the Potteries and comfortably Stoke's highest earner, Gibson isn't likely to be in a major rush to move despite this revelation, with the former £15 million Englishman happy to play his part whenever called upon.

Ben Gibson's addition cannot be repeated by Mark Robins at Stoke City amid Luke Graham links

Signed under Steven Schumacher and made captain, played just four games under the former Plymouth Argyle boss before his dismissal, played regularly under Narcis Pelach for a couple of months, and now exiled by Robins, Gibson's signing has been a disaster at Stoke that you could see coming.

Having featured regularly for Norwich City before making the move to North Staffordshire, Gibson being handed a lucrative three-year deal at 31 always posed a risk, and after just six months, that risk proved to have backfired.

His substantial wages make him the club's highest earner despite being, at best, fifth-choice centre-back and third-choice left-back.

It's a deal which largely epitomises the last decade at Stoke, signing ageing players with little resale value on big contracts, with each of Sam Vokes, Tom Ince, James McClean, and Sam Clucas all previously joining for in excess of a combined £20 million before all leaving for free.