9 days to Premier League season: Stoke City need to find defensive stability of old

• More: Richard Jolly's predictions | Fixtures in UAE time

The National's sports team is counting down the days until defending champions Leicester City take on newly promoted Hull City in the opening fixture of the 2016/17 English Premier League season by looking at one team a day. Today, Stoke City.

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It started so well last season for Mark Hughes’s team before tailing off so badly that it was really quite an achievement they managed to finish in the top half.

It summed up a season of paradox: Marko Arnautovic finished with double figures from a wide left position last season, yet Stoke, a team who pride themselves on defensive stability, finished with a -14 goal differential, easily the worst of teams in the top half and only beaten by the three relegated clubs and Bournemouth.

No doubt the horrific injury to promising England goalkeeper Jack Butland played a part, but a defence containing stalwarts such as Ryan Shawcross, Jeff Cameron, Erik Pieters and Philipp Wollscheid was breached too often with relative ease and monotonous regularity. Hughes needs to go back to the basics his predecessor, Tony Pulis, lived and died by and make Stoke hard to beat first and foremost.

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Previously

• Hull City: Promoted club had unstable summer

• Middlesbrough: Hopes lie largely in Spaniards

• Burnley: Third time the charm?

• Sunderland: Moyes the make-or-break factor in survival hopes

• Bournemouth: Well placed to avoid 'second season syndrome'

• Crystal Palace: Time to deliver on all that talent

• West Bromwich Albion: Another season of mid-table mediocrity

• Watford: Early fixtures will set the tone – for better or worse

• Swansea City: Swans need a striker, and stability

• Everton: In good hands with Koeman