Steven Schumacher has fixed a big Stoke City issue already | OneFootball

Stoke City have had a poor first half to their sixth successive Championship campaign.

They currently find themselves sat in 19th position in the second tier, seven points clear of the relegation zone.

They started the season under the guidance of Alex Neil, who was sacked in December after 16 months in charge, having managed to lead Stoke to a 16th-place finish last season in the Championship.

His replacement came nine days later in the form of Steven Schumacher - who the Potters took off divisional rivals Plymouth Argyle.

Schumacher was handed a three-and-a-half-year deal at the Bet365 stadium and left Argyle after two years in charge. He led them to the League One title last season, finishing with 101 points.

He is now Stoke’s sixth manager in six years, so he has a big job in his hands to steer Stoke away from the bottom of the table.

Stoke's goalkeeping situation

One of Stoke’s major problems of late has been at goalkeeper.

In the first half of the season, Stoke have failed to have a goalkeeper to have started the majority of games.

They started the season with Mark Travers, who joined on a season-long loan from Bournemouth.

However, he was then recalled by the Cherries in late October, following goalkeeping injury issues meaning they were forced to recall him.

Since then Stoke have stuck with Jack Bonham, who has kept five clean sheets in his twelve league games so far this campaign.

Young prodigy Tommy Simkin has also made a league start for the Potters this season. Frank Fielding and Blondy Nna Noukeu have seen their involvement limited to the bench so far this season.

With that being said, due to Travers recall, it was expected Stoke were going to go back in for a goalkeeper to replace him, and also solve their goalkeeping problem for the second half of the season.

Schumacher solves recurring Stoke problem with first signing

Schumacher has solved that problem in what is his first signing as Stoke boss, with Daniel Iversen joining on loan from Leicester City.

The Danish keeper has failed to make an appearance this season at his parent club, so this move represents a good one for all parties.

Iversen is a keeper who is experienced at Championship level, having spent a year-and-a-half on loan at Preston North End, in what were successful loan spells, in which he was their number one keeper in the Championship.

In his full season with Preston - the 21/22 campaign - he kept 13 clean sheets in 45 starts for the Lilywhites, ranking joint fifth that year for clean sheets in the division.

Hopefully, this means that the defence will improve, and it will settle now they have a goalkeeper between the sticks who should start every game for the rest of the season, provided there are no injuries between now and the culmination of the season.

Iversen is a very sensible signing from Stoke - and despite his debut not going as well as he would have hoped (conceded four against Brighton in the third round of the FA Cup), there is no reason why Iversen should not be successful at Stoke for Schumacher.