Walters still in Hughes’ Stoke plans

Walters was left out of the 18 when the Potters lost to West Brom last time around amid interest in his signature from Norwich but Hughes is now ready to usher him back into the fold in North London.

The improved league position has also helped to attract some high-profile signings this summer and the likes of Switzerland global Xherdan Shaqiri and Dutchman Ibrahim Afellay arrived at the Britannia in the recent transfer window.

Jonathan Walters still has a future at Stoke City, despite the forward attempting to leave the club during the transfer window.

“His immediate future is he’ll be involved in our game against Arsenal”, Hughes told reporters.

“We have been to other very hard places and picked up good results; obviously Manchester City springs to mind, so we know we are able to take positive results from these games”. He’ll get his head down.

Arsenal resume their Premier League season, and their rivalry with Stoke City, when the Potters travel to the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon. It is a distraction.

“I’ve said that until I’m blue in the face – yes, we want Jon to stay”, Hughes added. There is a club view in terms of the length of the contract but from a football perspective I want him here.

As he pointed out to Sky’s Rob Dorset at this week’s press conference: “Sky keep saying we’ve signed 12 players, but two of them were keepers and six were youngsters, so that was a bit misleading”.

Striker Diouf was called up for the Senegal squad during the global break, but didn’t feature for the side due to an ongoing injury problem.