Stoke City sporting director Jon Walters has opened up on the big-money move which saw Hull City prise Sorba Thomas away from the Potteries.
The winger, who is currently away on international duty with Wales and preparing for Thursday night’s meeting with Norway in Cardiff, moved to the MKM Stadium on deadline day at the beginning of the month.
Stoke stood firm over their valuation of the 27-year-old, with the deal worth an initial £7.5m, which could eventually rise to £10m, based on a series of add-ons after both clubs finally agreed.
The Tigers faced the Potters in the second round of the Carabao Cup at the bet365 Stadium, with talks ongoing, Thomas played and scored in the penalty shoot-out defeat to the Tigers. Eventually, on deadline day, the deal was done, and the winger made the move, as Walters explains.
“I only had conversations with his agent in the window, not any clubs. So when there’s interest from clubs, I just say, ‘Get the club to ring me’. If the clubs ring, then I know there’s interest. If they don’t ring, then there’s no interest. Stop making interest, stop putting it out there in the press. Unless there’s a solid conversation with a club, then there’s no interest,” he told BBC Radio Stoke.
“Now, as we do, players are on lists, and he might be number one on the list, or he might be number five, and football clubs might work their way through the list. But we always had the fear that was the case. Hull came in, and even when we played Hull, the interest was there, but they weren’t at a level that we were prepared to accept.”
“Taking my sporting director’s hat off for a minute, I have sat in Sorba’s shoes when I came to Stoke from Ipswich. I had the chance to be in the Premier League from a Championship club. And I was desperate to do that as a player because when you’re 26/27/28 that chance might not come along again. You might get an injury, so I can understand from Sorba’s point of view, so it was also a question of keeping him calm, keeping it open.
“I learnt from how I dealt with Wouter (Burger) that it’s best as a player to understand what’s going on, so there was an open dialogue with Sorba and his agent, knowing that the player is pushing and also wants to leave and have that chance in the Premier League. And that’s also difficult because you want to develop players to get you to the Premier League.”
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Walters admits that once the Tigers reached the figure Stoke would consider, a decision was made to cash in on a player they paid £1.5m for from Huddersfield Town in June 2025.
“So once they hit that mark with Sorba, there was a decision to be made as to whether we sell him or not, and it was only until very late that the number was hit and we had to make a decision on him,” he continued.
“We bought Sorba for X amount, which was low, and we sold him for very good profit. So from a trading point of view, I don’t think we would get that money again, or going into January and next summer. So as long as everyone is happy, we make a decision to do it.”
Allowing Thomas to depart for the MKM Stadium, the Potters brought in Justin Devenny from Crystal Palace as the Championship club moved to their Plan B. “You look at players who might go in the window. Who are the ones you’re wary about losing? There’s media speculation, sometimes agents put things out there, and it’s not true. It wasn’t until the end of the window that there was interest,” Walters added.
“We had it in our head that something could always happen with Sorba. There was a little bit of interest there, albeit we never had a conversation or a phone call with another club until right at the very end. That then becomes a conversation.
“Some of the most difficult positions are wingers. We had our eye on a number of wingers, inverted wingers, out-and-out wingers… I was conscious of Stoke is a club built on wingers, lots of goalmouth action, lots of crosses into the box and that’s part of Stoke’s identity.
“So we were always looking at what happens if Sorba goes. And then Justin Devenny came about because we’d spoken to his agent earlier in the window. Crystal Palace were asking for more money at the time than we paid, and there were a lot of clubs interested, but no one had made a move.
“He’d changed agents, and there were talks of moves into Europe. The conversation with Crystal Palace early on was that they wanted X amount, which would have taken him out of our price bracket, but as the window went on and not a lot had happened, we thought there might be an opportunity. But there was only an opportunity if Sorba was to move on. So there were a lot of conversations at the time as to are we happy to lose a winger and sign a midfielder.
“Justin has played a number of positions and is a very versatile player, and I think he wanted to nail down a position, and I thought we could offer him that. So I think an opportunity arose, and sometimes you have to act quite quickly, and a decision was made at the time.”
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