Hughes prepares for Stoke to forget West Brom's Berahino

Stoke boss Mark Hughes admits he may have to give up on West Brom forward Saido Berahino.

The Potters have been chasing the 23-year-old for much of the transfer window and had hoped that they could persuade the Baggies to part with a striker who has long tried to engineer a move away from The Hawthorns.

"We're quite a way down the line with that one, in terms of going back and fro," he said at his press conference on Thursday.

"I'm not really up to date in terms of where we are at this moment in time.

"You have to let these things run their course and give them the time that they deserve. There may well become a point, not necessarily with these negotiations, but certainly some deals just go on and on and you get to a point where you have to make a decision to move on.

"There have been deals this window where we've made the decision to do that but aren't in the public domain like this one.

"We're still there, we're still of the view that something may happen but we're close to a point where maybe we have to look at alternatives."