Stoke City fans the flames of Buddle rumour

I don’t know of another team that fans the flames of speculation around the club quite like Stoke City.

While so many other clubs distance themselves from newspaper reports and blog-fuelled rumours about transfers, Stoke embraces them. This week, the club’s transfer speculation page highlighted a report from the Daily Mail that suggested Stoke could be where American striker Edson Buddle lands during the January transfer window.

By openly acknowledging the report on the club’s own official website, the team gives instant credibility to the rumour. At the bottom of the page, Buddle is listed as one of the 10 players linked to possible January moves to Stoke, a list that also includes Sporting Kansas City’s Teal Bunbury.

Buddle, who was part of Toronto FC’s inaugural roster in 2007, finished second in the MLS scoring race this season and was part of the U.S. squad that went to the World Cup in South Africa. He was on trial at Birmingham City; that team claims it may still be interested in Buddle, but is looking at some other options at forward, first.

But, since Stoke highlighted the Buddle rumour — and then placed the American target-man into a list of 10 players who could move to the Potters — we have to assume that speculation that Buddle could move to SCFC rather than Birmingham is spot-on.