Stoke City: Alex Neil's side to join ex-club Sunderland on World Cup break in Dubai

Stoke made a previous trip to Dubai as a Premier League club in January 2015

Stoke City may only have one player at the World Cup but the rest of the Potters squad will still be enjoying some sunshine in the Persian Gulf.

Aside from Australia's Scotland-born defender Harry Souttar, the remaining players have been given the first week of the World Cup break off.

But when the action hots up in Qatar, Stoke will then head off for a week-long training camp in nearby Dubai.

And they are there alongside Potters boss Alex Neil's old club Sunderland.

Neil booked the trip for Sunderland, with whom he won promotion back to the Championship in May, prior to leaving Wearside to join Stoke in late August.

But he will now bump into a few old workmates, having decided what was good enough for Sunderland will work for Stoke too.

"I'd already sorted a trip for Sunderland, so we're there too now," Neil told BBC Radio Stoke. "We're there at the same time as Sunderland.

"A month's a long time in football, so the lads are having a break for a week. Then the second week will be going to the training camp, and a game out there, then a week of training and another game on the Saturday.

"Then the following week we're back in business (a Championship home game with Cardiff City on 10 December - the same day as the first two World Cup quarter-finals).

Alex Neil has so far lost seven of his 15 games in charge of Stoke City

"We'd looked at America but they've still got Covid restrictions. We just wanted somewhere to guarantee the weather.

"We've got crucial games coming up, before the January window, so we have a couple of months to see everything is in order before we get to January."

After three months in charge, and just five wins from 15 games, Neil sees the World Cup break as a chance to not just recharge batteries, but reboot a season that has once again not gone to plan in the Potteries.

In their fifth season back in the second tier, Stoke stand seemingly as far away from a return to the Premier League as ever, just two points clear of the relegation zone in 17th place.

That said, in an extraordinarily congested division, Neil's side are also just six points off a play-off place.

'Top-half finish the aim'

Having had time to make just one signing in the August window, Chelsea loan defender Dujon Sterling, Neil and new technical director Ricky Martin are targeting January as the time to have some impact.

"I came here because there's massive scope," he said. "Owners that really want the club to do well and will do everything in their power to help you.

"They let me make key decisions as to what the next stage of the club is going to look like, and a lot of the time you don't get that type of scope.

"But it's not just going to happen overnight. I came here not for a short period, I came here to build something over a long period of time.

"It's naturally going to take a bit longer than it would in some other circumstances.

"When you come into a job, there are some squads where you know you've got until the end of the season to get them out of a league, because that's where the squad is and how much money has been put in.

"I don't think anyone looks at us like that. They look at us as having underachieved for a number of years. We need to steady the ship and build something that lasts a period of time and we're only at the start of that process.

"Ricky coming in will fix something that needs fixing, to oversee the departments to make sure everyone is driving performance. I'm a big believer that if you get everything right off the pitch and into a good place, it will transmit onto the pitch.

"In terms of building a rapport with the fans, it's trying to break this sort of self premonition amongst them that we've done well but it's all going to go south at some point. That still lingers about.

"Performances so far haven't always merited what we've got but we've not finished any higher than 14th in four seasons. It's not as if it's worse than in the past, to be brutally honest, and I want to make sure we at least finish in the top half this year. That's my aim."

Alex Neil was talking to BBC Radio Stoke sports editor Matt Sandoz