£18m Spurs transfer agreement proved expensive for Stoke City in every way: View | OneFootball

Kevin Wimmer will not be remembered fondly among the Potters faithful

The 2017/18 season was not one that went at all well from a Stoke City perspective.

Heading into the campaign, the Potters were preparing for their tenth consecutive season in the top-flight of English football.

As a result of the financial benefits that came with their top tier status, the club were able to invest heavily in a number of new signings during the summer of 2017.

However, not all of those signings would work out for Stoke City, which come the end of the campaign would prove very costly indeed.

One player who certainly fell into that particular scenario in Staffordshire, was Kevin Wimmer.

Stoke paid big money for Kevin Wimmer

After spending the last two years at Tottenham, it was confirmed that Wimmer had joined the Potters in August 2017.

Despite the fact he had never been a regular for Spurs during his time there, it was reported that Stoke still paid a fee of around £18million for the centre-back.

In doing so, the Austrian became one of the club's most expensive signings ever, and it would prove to be an expensive one in many ways.

Initially, Wimmer was a regular feature in the Stoke side, often as a starter, under then manager Mark Hughes.

However, he struggled to impress with his performances, and came in for some significant criticism from the fanbase, as the Potters battled relegation right from the start of the campaign.

Indeed, after Hughes was sacked and replaced in January 2018 by Paul Lambert as manager, the centre-back did not make another appearance that season.

The new manager reportedly also put Wimmer on a special fitness regime, further highlighting his problems at the club.

The centre-back's removal from the side did coincide with some improved defensive performances, although Stoke could not muster enough in attack needed to avoid relegation to the Championship.

Even so, the drop-down a division did nothing to improve the Austrian's fortunes at the Bet365 Stadium.

If anything, things would only serve to get worse with regards to this deal, after the Potters dropped into the second-tier of English football.

Kevin Wimmer played no part for the Potters in the Championship

Not long after relegation was confirmed for Stoke, Wimmer was on the move, as he joined Hannover on loan for the 2018/19 season, with an option to buy.

However, the centre-back failed to make enough appearances for the club to secure a permanent move, as they suffered relegation to the German second-tier.

With Stoke themselves still in the Championship, he would again be loaned out for the 2019/20 campaign, this time to Belgian side Mouscron.

But with the season in Belgium ended prematurely due to the pandemic, Wimmer returned to the Potters, and spent the first-half of the 2020/21 season with the Championship side.

During that time though, he did not add another appearance to his tally for the club, before once again being sent out on loan to German second-tier side Karlsruher in February 2021.

That would all but prove to be an end to Wimmer's association with Stoke, as his contract with the club was terminated by mutual consent in May 2021, freeing him to move to Rapid Wien in Austria.

As a result, the defender's time with the club ended with the Potters having paid £18million for him to make 19 appearances in a season in which they were relegated from the Premier League.

After that, he remained on their books for three more years as the club languished in the Championship, without playing any part in their attempts to win promotion.

Following that he would then depart the club for nothing, denying them the chance to make any sort of return on their investment in him.

The signing of Wimmer will therefore, surely go down as one of the costliest in the history of Stoke City, in any number of ways.