Mark Hughes: 'Stoke City can now compete for big names'

Stoke City boss Mark Hughes believes that the Potters can now compete for big names in the transfer market.

The Premier League outfit reportedly made a club-record bid for Bayern Munich's Xherdan Shaqiri last week, but the Swiss international eventually chose Inter Milan.

Hughes, however, has taken the positive news from the Shaqiri talks, which he believes has shown the club's new prowess in the market.

"We get the opportunity to discuss things at that level now, and I don't think that was the case here before," Hughes told reporters.

"It's fair to say in the past we've said to agents 'we could be interested' and the response has always been 'don't bother'. That was probably the case in previous years, but that's certainly changed in my time here."

Stoke have already signed Philipp Wollscheid on loan from Bayer Leverkusen this month.