Stoke lost out to Inter Milan in the race to sign winger Xherdan Shaqiri, but Potters boss Mark Hughes said it showed the ambition of his club. "We will pursue players who we feel that we can realistically get and Shaqiri was one of those. He slipped by the wayside, but we were firmly in the frame.
"If you read what his agent said then you will see that we were serious contenders.
"We can take a lot of comfort from the fact that we can get these players in the room now and have serious conversations with them. Maybe that wasn't the case in the past."
