Football League World
·29 September 2022
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·29 September 2022
Following his arrival late on in the summer transfer window of 2017 for a massive £18 million fee, Austrian centre-back Kevin Wimmer was expected to be a significant addition to the Stoke City back-line.
Instead though, he ended up being one of the biggest flops in the history of the Potters when it came to productivity and the money spent to bring him in.
Despite only featuring 31 times in two seasons for Tottenham Hotspur, the London club made a major profit on Wimmer, who they signed for just £4.3 million from Koln, with then-Stoke boss Mark Hughes believing that the price paid for his services would be appreciated in the years to come as a sound investment.
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Hughes did not last much longer at the Bet365 Stadium after those comments as he was sacked in January 2018, and in-turn Wimmer’s days in Staffordshire were coming to an end as well, with his last league game for the club being in the same month, just a week after Hughes’ sacking.
Paul Lambert, the replacement in the dugout for Hughes, did not rate Wimmer and banished him to the under-23’s, and the following season the defender returned to Germany on loan to play for Hannover when Stoke were relegated to the Championship.
Royal Excel Mouscron of Belgium were the next outfit to take a chance on Wimmer temporarily in 2019-20, and his final loan move away from Stoke came in the second half of the 2020-21 season, where he joined German second tier side Karlsruher.
Wimmer’s Stoke nightmare was finally ended in May 2021 when his contract was terminated a year early at the club, but what has he been up to since then?
His departure last year allowed Wimmer to pursue a move back to his home nation of Austria with Rapid Vienna, and when he’s fully-fit, the 29-year-old has been a regular starter for Die Grün-Weißen.
Wimmer played 30 times in all competitions in the 2021-22 season, although he did have to miss a couple of months worth of action due to undergoing groin surgery.
This season, Wimmer played a part in every single UEFA Europa Conference League qualifier as Rapid Vienna were knocked out in the final qualifying round by Luxembourg-based outfit FC Vaduz, and has also made five appearances in the Austrian Bundesliga as well.
Wimmer has not yet done enough to build on his nine international caps for Austria, with his most recent one coming in 2018, and those days representing his nation could be over for good.
A Stoke departure last year though was much-needed for Wimmer as he needed to get his career back on track in some kind of way, and he’s now seemingly settled at Rapid Vienna.