Stoke chairman Peter Coates admitted that the move to sign Imbula was on-and-off for a few days before finally coming to terms with Porto, who signed the French global for £15.1 million (AU$30.7 million) seven months ago.
Advertisement
Imbula jetted into the United Kingdom this evening from Portugal and has passed his medical at the club.
But statements of intent were evident elsewhere with the Potters smashing their transfer record again to bring in £18.3m midfielder Giannelli Imbula from Porto.
Stoke boss Mark Hughes said: “Giannelli is a good young player”. I don’t anticipate anything will happen with him. We are predicting that his price on the transfer market is going to be pretty high so we hope you have some coins saved up for him. We hope that at some point during the day, we’ll be able to announce a big signing. There won’t be any last-minute deals that we haven’t thought through and done work on’. He will come in and add to the quality we have got.
“We will look at that (lack of game time) and factor that in for when he plays”.
“The deal has been around for a week or two, but we’ve known about him for much longer than that”, Coates told talkSPORT.
Imbula had arrived in the Potteries earlier on Monday after Stoke and Porto made a breakthrough in negotiations, and with minutes left on the clock he sealed the move.
The 25-year-old Senegal global signed a four-and-a-half-year deal.
Advertisement
Reports emerged late in the day of Leicester’s interest in Stoke striker Mame Diouf in case they failed to sign Chelsea’s Loic Remy on loan.
