Stoke City were the bookie's favourites at the beginning of the season to make an instant return to the Premier League but their season has pelted out. The Potters have been average this season with their inability to score a major problem for the team.

This was evident in their last fixture where the team played to a goalless draw at home to struggling Reading. Despite dominating the game Stoke City were unable to find the breakthrough in the match. Tom Ince was one of two players to hit the bar for the host after sending a shot onto the post in the first half.

Bojan Krkic situation is one of a failed potential as the player touted by many a decade ago to take the football World by storm has been reduced to a lower league player. The former Barcelona forward has been with English outfit Stoke City since the summer of 2014.

Despite beginning his career at the club aplomb with goals and assists the player continued his prior trend of falling by the wayside after starting well.

Stoke City striker BojanKrkic is said to be on the verge of a move away from the Brittania Stadium following a difficult season at Stoke and New England Revolution are said to be monitoring his situation.

Major League Soccer outfit New England Revolution are reportedly tabling an offer for former Barcelona player BojanKrkic as the Spaniard tries to force his way out of Stoke City.

Following the Argentine out of the academy system of Barcelona, the forward admitted that he has struggled to handle the pressure of high expectations. There are a lot of players who were labeled as the “new Lionel Messi” from many years and one such player was the former star player of Barcelona, Bojan Krkic, he was always rated very high and was considered as the next big thing in the football. But in a recent press conference, he admitted that these high expectations let him down as the immense pressure to perform with such a high leveled frustrated him and hence he was unable to give his best. With the tag of “new Messi”, he struggled to find his way and show his real talent.

When he entered the professional football, huge things were expected from the exciting frontman. And the pundits of football started calling him the upcoming legend and they, in fact, proved to be true as the young lad went to do net 12 times in a breakthrough campaign which was held between 2007 and 2008 and very soon reached the tally of double figures in all the first 3 seasons as a star (senior). However, with the passage of time he faded and was unable to match the expectations and also wasn’t able to scale the heights of his legend former colleague and contended that the expectations at such a young age cost him a lot.

By reflecting on his football career so far, Bojan Krkic the former Barcelona striker has stated that he was not happy to be asked to give something that was contrary to his personality. The future is now in the English championship with the Stoke City and looking back at his career’s old days in an interview with the media.

He said, "From my career’s first day, I was asked I should be a son of a fool". He added, "At the first instance when I heard this, I was not too conscious of what it exactly means, but after a year I understood it, though I have never been able to. I played in best Barcelona teams all the time, in Milan, on Ajax, with Roma. That time I was able to score goals in all four major leagues." He added. While some may feel that the career of Bojan so far is an unfulfilled promise, he feels it is the wrong way to look at things.

BojanKrkic has revealed how he was anxious to play for Barcelona. He said that he was only 17 at that time and he was training at the famous La Masia training center with the likes of Samuel Etoo and Iniesta and that he was so afraid that he did not want to touch a water bottle.

He said that there was too much pressure at Barcelona and this is the main reason why he was not able to perform to the best of his abilities.

There is no denying that the Barcelona man Bojan Krkic showed his spectacular performance in the preseason, which has attracted most of the biggest football teams in Europe. The forward from Stoke City did attract two of football teams of Portugal Benfica and Porto. Many teams did assess the performance of Krkic during preseason as he was indeed the best player. As a result, Benfica and Porto are planning to make a move to take him either on loan or on a permanent basis. Both teams feel that Krkic will be a good addition to face the attacks. As far as Stoke City is concerned, their main focus now is to obtain promotion to the Premier League and by no means will they come in the way of Krkic in regards to his decision of moving on. The transfer market in England is non-operational on Thursday which means they have less or no time left to seek a skilled replacement for Krkic.

Football League squads are given permission to do loan deals post the closure of a window which is not the same in the case of Premier Leagues. Krkic spent the entire last season with Alaves on a loan basis and may be preparing himself to join a new league sooner or later. After his tenure in England, Holland and Spain, it is now time to include Portugal in his list.

There are reports in Spain that La Liga clubs are looking at signing BojanKrkic on a permanent basis. Since the relegation of Stoke City in the Premier League last term, there have been talks of the club selling off players, reducing its wage bill and getting players that reflect their new status.

Stoke loaned Bojan to DeportivoAlaves last summer for the whole of the football season. However, the player is now set to play in Spain on a permanent basis now. At Alaves, he featured in 15 games all season, playing 13 times in the La Liga and twice in the Copa del Rey competition where he scored his sole goal of the season.

Former Real Madrid man Jese Rodriguez is set to return to action for Stoke City, according to reports. The 24-year old Spaniard is back in England and has resumed training. He is expected to play a key role in the concluding part of the season for the Premier League strugglers.

Paul Lambert seems impressed with the club’s summer signing. Jese has not featured for Stoke since the loss to Liverpool on November 29. He started very well with a nice goal against Arsenal on debut in August but he has failed to add more.

The game of football has seen some amazing players play for clubs, gotten at a relatively cheap prices - at various stages in player's careers, rival clubs will always have the chance to evaluate talents to decide if they could go on to make real impact.

Here are some players who eventually went on to prove the Catalan giants wrong after the club failed to retain them.