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It went right down to the wire, and it wasn't the permanent deal most had been hoping for, but in the end Oussama Assaidi has completed his move back to Stoke City for another season on loan. With the player's wage demands having prevented a permanent transfer, in the end the two clubs decided to simply push through another temporary one.
Stoke will pay Liverpool a £1M loan fee for Assaidi as well as covering all of his reported £25k per week wages. It had been suggested that the 26-year-old Moroccan winger had been demanding doubled wages to move to Stoke full time. He has two years left on his contract after arriving in Liverpool in 2012 for a £2.4M fee.
In retrospect, Assaidi may regret not asking for a more reasonable raise from Stoke to make a permanent move to the Potters, one that the club would not have baulked at. If he had done so he could have found himself today making more money and with a more stable future. Instead he's on the same wages as before and off on loan for at least one more year.
Assaidi's current deal runs through the summer of 2016, meaning that it's not impossible to imagine him being loaned out to Stoke City yet again next summer.
