Shaqiri spotted at Stoke match

Stoke City manager Mark Hughes is hopeful of signing Inter winger Xherdan Shaqiri, who was at the Britannia Stadium today.

Everton are expected to lose out to Stoke City in their attempts to land Inter Milan winger Xherdan Shaqiri.

Hughes has admitted that his side are looking to seal a deal for Shaqiri, but is adamant that it is far from over the line.

Shaqiri only joined Inter from Bayern Munich in January, but Roberto Mancini is reportedly willing to offload the 23-year-old in order to create funds to bring in new players. “We are hopeful we can do something but until we say players standing in front of the training ground with the shirt in their arms, we will have to see”. “We’ve been close [to an agreement] in the past, so we’ll wait and see”. We’ve had a pre-season of chasing quality targets.

The Switzerland global was at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday and watched Stoke begin their Premier League season with a 1-0 defeat against Liverpool.

Hughes was annoyed that referee Anthony Taylor did not dismiss Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren, who was booked for elbowing Mame Biram Diouf. He said: “I had some sort of explanation from [fourth official] Jon Moss which wasn’t something I had heard before and I finished that conversation with a quizzical look on my face. If that is the case, he was fortunate not to get a red”.