Xherdan Shaqiri will hold talks with Stoke City about his future in the summer regardless of whether they retain their Premier League status, with the Switzerland forward determined to do everything in his power to help the club survive this season but honest enough to admit that fighting relegation is not what he signed up for when he joined from Internazionale.
Speaking in the lead-up to the critical home match against Crystal Palace on Saturday, Shaqiri sounded totally committed in the short term as he stressed the need for “11 warriors on the pitch” for a game that Stoke must win to have any chance of avoiding the drop, yet there was also no escaping his sense of disappointment at the way things have turned out at the club he joined three years ago for £12m.
“I am as frustrated as everyone, I think because I came here for different ambitions, not to play for relegation,” Shaqiri said. “But sometimes at a club something goes wrong and you have to stand up and try to do the best.
“Of course they need to do a lot of new things in the club. But the most important thing is to stay up with this club and then you can rebuild.”
Asked what he did expect when he signed for Stoke, the 26‑year‑old replied: “I didn’t expect to go to the Champions League, or to be champions, but at least to see the club going forward, that was for me the most important thing. When I came here, I wanted to do more than they are at the moment, every year [getting] better and better and better. It was not [to be] like this and it’s always difficult to say why.
“When I came here, the coach [Mark Hughes] called me and said ‘I want you here’, that he wanted to improve a team that would play maybe for Europe – maybe like Burnley now, they’re going for sixth or seventh place, which is surprising. But it never happened here. It’s sometimes difficult to accept but I give everything to my club, I have a long contract that I signed here, so I try to give a performance every weekend to help my team‑mates achieve something.”
Shaqiri, who is Stoke’s leading scorer this season with seven Premier League goals, has two years remaining on his current deal and it seems like a foregone conclusion that the former Bayern Munich winger will move on in the event of relegation.
“Everybody knows I’m a player who wants to play at the highest level, that’s pretty normal,” Shaqiri said. “But I hope we are going to end this well, that we stay up, then we will sit down with the club.”
Shaqiri’s aspirations when he arrived were fuelled by the idea that Hughes was trying to take Stoke in a much more exciting direction and, in fairness, there were moments when that plan had real substance. The 2-0 victory against Manchester City in December 2015 springs to mind, when Shaqiri starred alongside Marko Arnautovic and Bojan Krkic in a thrilling attacking trident that wreaked havoc against Manuel Pellegrini’s side. Yet the fun only lasted so long and there were signs that Stoke were losing their way long before the start of this season.
Premier League
Champions: Manchester City
Europe: Manchester United will finish in the top four, with Liverpool and Tottenham favourites to join them. Chelsea are five points behind Spurs in fifth with a game in hand. Arsenal and Burnley are heading to the Europa League, the Clarets returning to Europe after 51 years away.
Relegation: Stoke City were relegated after their defeat to Crystal Palace – but West Brom shocked Spurs to stay alive. Southampton are level on points with Swansea, who they play in their penultimate match. Huddersfield are two points clear and still looking over their shoulders.
Championship
Champions: Wolves
Automatic promotion: Cardiff need a home win over Reading to seal promotion, with Fulham hoping to pounce on any slip-up against Birmingham on the final day.
Play-offs: Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, with Derby leading the race to join them. Preston can still force their way into the top six while Millwall have only a mathematical chance.
Relegation: Sunderland will finish bottom with Burton, Bolton and Barnsley separated by a point. Barnsley can secure survival with a win at Derby on the final day, while Burton go to Preston and Bolton host Nottingham Forest.
League One
Champions: Wigan (pictured)
Promoted: Blackburn
Play-offs: Charlton v Shrewsbury, Scunthorpe v Rotherham.
Relegated: Oldham, Northampton, MK Dons, Bury.
League Two
Champions: Accrington Stanley
Promoted: Luton Town, Wycombe (pictured)
Play-offs: Lincoln v Exeter, Coventry v Notts County
Relegated: Barnet, Chesterfield.
National League: Macclesfield Town have secured the only automatic promotion spot, with one from Tranmere, Sutton United and Boreham Wood to come up via the play-offs.
Scotland
Premiership: Celtic sealed their seventh straight title by beating Rangers, who are fighting for European places with Aberdeen and Hibernian. Relegation looks to be between Partick and Ross County.
Championship: St Mirren are champions, with Livingston and Dunfermline playing off for the right to face the 11th-placed Premiership team. Brechin are relegated.
League One: Ayr United are champions with Alloa and Dumbarton in the promotion play-off final. Albion are relegated.
League Two: Montrose are champions with Peterhead and Stenhousemuir in the play-off final. Cowdenbeath face a relegation play-off with Cove Rangers.
With so much at stake still, Shaqiri is reluctant to wade into the reasons for the club’s decline but poor recruitment is clearly at the heart of the matter, in particular up front, where the absence of a regular goalscorer has been a huge problem. “Everybody knows at the club what was wrong, so they’re going to look at everything at the end of the season,” Shaqiri said. “There’s no time here to do that now, to go through each point.
“People know the biggest thing that happened in this club. There have been a lot of transfers that they thought were going to help us – and they were good transfers – but something went wrong.”
The damage is not yet terminal as far as Stoke’s survival prospects are concerned but, realistically, they will need to beat Palace and then win at Swansea on the final day to have any chance of avoiding relegation. Shaqiri is up for the challenge.
“I’m going to try everything and give my best,” he said. “Sometimes you have to go to war. Crystal Palace is going to be like this – it’s a war we have to win for sure. We need 11 warriors on the pitch who are going to beat their opponent.”
