Pieters signs as Burnley go shopping at Stoke again
Those involved in transfers at Burnley and Stoke must be getting quite used to each other now and today we’ve signed our fourth player from the Potteries club in the last two years with the capture of experienced left-back Erik Pieters who has signed a two year deal with an option of a third year for an undisclosed fee.
Jon Walters and then Phil Bardsley arrived two years ago while Peter Crouch signed last January with Sam Vokes going the other way and Pieters now comes in to fill the gap on the left hand side of the defence following Stephen Ward’s departure to, yes you’ve guessed it, Stoke.
Dutch international Pieters has been with Stoke for six years having previously played in the Netherlands for Utrecht and PSV Eindhoven. Then manager Mark Hughes paid £3 million for him, his first signing as Stoke manager, and Pieters’ has gone on to play 190 league games for Stoke in those six years.
He played five years in the Premier League for Stoke and amassed a total of 169 league appearances in those five season, the regular left back under Hughes, Paul Lambert and Gary Rowett. However, three days after Nathan Jones, the current manager, arrived, Pieters lined up for the final time in a Stoke shirt. It was his 21st Championship appearance of last season in a 3-1 defeat at Brentford.
That prompted a loan move to French Ligue 1 club Amiens. He moved at the end of the January transfer window and played 15 games for them before returning to Stoke where things are changing. It will be partly the new manager coming in and also, maybe, partly the sort of situation that we saw at Wolves when players such as Ward were frozen out and were moved on, much to our benefit.
We’ve got an experienced left-back now to compete with Charlie Taylor and a left-back who can also boast 18 full international caps for the Netherlands.
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