Stoke City's top-half finish is all but confirmed, thanks to a manager who has spent just £8m in transfer fees since the beginning of last season. Tony Pulis left the Britannia Stadium after reported disagreements over transfer budgets, but Mark Hughes has shown Stoke a different way. Last season Hughes led Stoke to their highest league finish in 39 years. This season he has spent £1.6m on new players, the fee they paid Barcelona for Bojan Krkic. No other Premier League team has spent less than £11m. Hughes is about to match that ninth-place finish, and could yet beat it.
Amidst talk of Jose Mourinho, Ronald Koeman and Garry Monk, Hughes has been entirely overlooked in the discussions over the Manager of the Year award. A reminder then that the five clubs directly above Stoke have spent £455m on new players in the last ten months, and the three clubs directly below them each spent at least 17 times as much as Hughes. In the day's of these massive wage budgets and transfer fees, the guy is a genius, even if his reputation isn't the greatest.