Hull City & Stoke City should both push to sign ex-Bolton Wanderers star | OneFootball

Hull City and Stoke City should try to sign former Bolton Wanderers attacker Dapo Afolayan from St Pauli in the January transfer window.

As the January transfer window races along, the business in the Championship is beginning to heat up with what is perhaps one of the most open promotion races in recent memory.

Two of those sides seeking to benefit from a division that promises so much for so many are Hull City and Stoke City, and both sides should seek to strengthen and make a potentially season-defining signing with a pursuit of St Pauli man Dapo Afolayan.

Hull City have gone through their fair share of trials and tribulations of late and the Tigers remain under a transfer embargo whereby they are restricted in the purchasing of players.

Despite that, manager Semir Jakirovic, who was appointed in the summer, has led an entertaining first-half to this season that leaves Hull sitting just outside of the top six and the play-off places with 78 goals being scored in their 25 matches so far this season.

Stoke City, on the other hand, began the campaign extremely well under the management of Mark Robins, having endured a very underwhelming 2024/25 season.

The Potters drifted from the top through the autumn and early winter but may well have rediscovered their spark in 2026, with a 1-0 defeat of league leaders Coventry City in the third round of the FA Cup last weekend ensuring it was three wins from three since the turn of the year. They sit a point and a place behind Hull in the second-tier table.

With both sides expecting to push for a play-off berth in the second-half of the campaign, this month represents an excellent opportunity to find a possible point of difference to push themselves over the line and Afolayan would be an excellent addition for that cause.

Dapo Afolayan could be a cost-effective coup from St Pauli

Having thrived in the National League with Solihull Moors, West Ham United took Dapo Afolayan in on a permanent deal in 2018 before loan stints at Oldham Athletic and Mansfield Town.

A loan spell in the second-half of the 2020/21 campaign at Bolton Wanderers is where he began to flourish, though, becoming a key man for a Bolton side that gained automatic promotion from League Two.

Joining Bolton on a three-year deal, Afolayan immediately made the step up League One football with the former England C international proving to be a key man for a Bolton side that finished ninth, finishing as top scorer, and then challenged for promotion in the 2022/23 campaign.

However, after 20 goals and seven assists in that season and a half since League Two promotion, Bolton opted to cash in on the attacker, rather than get him to help them back to the Championship – and the Trotters are still floundering even now in the third-tier.

Afolayan, on the other hand, ended up becoming a key man for now Brighton and Hove Albion manger Fabian Hurzeler, driving St Pauli away from 2. Bundesliga relegation in the 2022/23 season before hitting double figures for goals in the 2023/24 campaign as they won the division and ended a 13-year absence from the Bundesliga.

Afolayan’s game time naturally diminished last season and his involvement in the first-team has been minimal again this time around so a move appears inevitable this winter, having already been linked with Blackburn Rovers in the summer.

Out of contract this summer, the 28-year-old could prove to be a cost-effective coup for any side looking to find someone who has the quality to lift a team out of a second division, as he has proven in recent memory.

For what would be a relatively low fee, the likes of Hull or Stoke could be pursuing a player who is a Bundesliga player and someone who has been key to a couple of promotions.

He has not yet played Championship football and while that may be a concern for some, it also suggests we are not yet aware of his ceiling in relation to England’s second-tier, having been one of, if not the, best players in the third division in the past.

Dapo Afolayan would suit both Hull and Stoke

Both Hull and Stoke play a 4-2-3-1 system and that is a system that would be ideally suited to the profile of winger that Afolayan is, having initially thrived in that shape when at Bolton in League Two.

The switch to a 3-5-2 hampered Afolayan’s influence with the Trotters, albeit he still came up with moments of magic and, when allowed to play on the left, produced pieces of play that no other player could do for the level, as shown by Bolton coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Accrington Stanley with Afolayan almost single-handedly swinging things around after a rare shift in system to put him on the left just a couple of months before his departure.

At St Pauli, despite playing in a back three, it was certainly more of a 3-4-3 shape and his ability to cut in from the left and onto his right foot was again regularly effective at Stadion Millerntor in Hamburg.

Both Jakirovic and Robins are known for a proactive style in the final third but their respective abilities to coach teams in transition has allowed both Hull and Stoke to become a couple of the better watches in the Championship, always feeling in the game to score even without the ball.

In that regard, Afolayan would be ideal with the former Chelsea academy man a brilliant dribbler and capable of helping break the lines and get the ball up the pitch in a fluid way that would suit both Hull and Stoke.

To emphasise that point, Afolayan was comfortably the man with the most successful dribbles at Bolton in the 2021/22 season, with 1.6, and he was third for St Pauli in their promotion-winning campaign in the 2023/24 season with 2.2, according to FotMob.

In contrast, no Hull player has matched those numbers from the when Afolayan was in Germany this season, and the same can be said for Stoke, too.

Stoke boast the likes of Lamine Cisse, Million Manhoef, Bae Jun-ho and the extremely impressive Sorba Thomas but there is a lack of depth beyond that for those positions, while Hull are also in need of quality depth for the likes of Liam Millar, Kasey Palmer, Joel Ndala and David Akintola.

Afolayan is a player with a proven record of being able to be prolific for his position in promotion-winning teams who is also in a convenient contractual situation at his current club that makes it a brilliant opportunity for ambitious sides, such as Hull and Stoke, to pounce this month.