Stoke City allowed defender Robert Huth to join Leicester City on a loan deal till the end of the campaign.

This arrangement was made in order to keep the player happy in what could be his final season at Stoke. After the arrival of Mark Hughes, the club has been moving forward in terms of its players. The former Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City manager has been using players that he has brought into the club. This coupled with several injuries faced byHuth at the start of the season has rendered him surplus to requirements at Stoke.

After moving to Leicester City in the January transfer window, Stoke have found themselves with a tight situation at the back. Captain and defender Ryan Shawcross has suffered an injury that is expected to keep him out of action for a few matches. Stoke announced Huth’s move to Leicester only a few days ago. Manager Hughes has claimed that he would not have sanctioned the move for Huth had the injury to Shawcross come a few days earlier. Shawcross was injured only in the 3-1 victory over QPR. Since his move to Leicester, Huth has completed two 90 minutes of action. He managed only three minutes of football during the first half with Stoke.

“It had been completed on the Friday prior to the game, and you can’t legislate for those things — that is what happens. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and if we had [known Shawcross would get injured] we probably would have stepped back, away from allowing Robert to go. But things had moved on, everything was in place and it had been signed off. There wasn’t any room to manoeuvre on that. He has an issue with a disc in his back, which is a little bit inflamed,” said Hughes.