Name: Dave Kitson
Position: Forward
Date of Birth: 21/1/1980
Nationality: English
Place of Birth: Hitchin
Squad Number: 12
Nickname: The Ninja
Former Clubs: Cambridge, Reading, Middlesbrough
Joined Stoke: 2008 (£5.5 million)
The term “expensive flop” is often used to describe footballers, and fits just about perfectly with Kitson’s Stoke career to date. He was signed for a fee of up to £5.5 million, a massive club record, from Reading in July 2008 and hopes were very high that he, a proven Premier League goalscorer, could fire us to safety in our first top flight campaign in 23 years. Instead we’ve seen a player low on confidence, seemingly low on quality, and obviously low on interest as he failed to score in any of his first eighteen Stoke games.
He was loaned back to Reading mid-way through the season where his form picked up slightly, but their failure to win promotion back to the Premier League meant they could not afford to sign him on a permanent basis. On the back of this, he came into the 2009/10 season with a vastly improved attitude, clearly keen to prove himself at Stoke, and finally scored his first Stoke goal, a long-range screamer in a League Cup tie at Leyton Orient on August 26th, before following it up with his first league goal, the winner over Sunderland, three days later. He fell back down the pecking order though, and was sent out on loan to Championship Middlesbrough in November 2009. He did well for Boro, scoring three goals for the club before returning to Stoke where, after four months frozen out of the side, he shows signs of returning to prominence.
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