In June 2005 Tony Pulis was sacked by Stoke's Icelandic board and Dutch manager Johan Boskamp was appointed. He went about changing Stoke's style of play to a more European passing style which also meant a decent number of foreign players were signed by the club. The change in style had mixed success whilst Stoke did play good attacking football the defensive qualities by Pulis's side went missing and Stoke suffered some poor defeats particularly at home. Stoke were far too inconsistent to be anything other than a mid-table side and they finished in 13th position. At the end of the season Boskamp left the club and Icelandic chairman Gunnar Gíslason put the club up for sale. Former chairman Peter Coates brought the club back and re-appointed Tony Pulis as manager.

On 28 June 2005 manager Tony Pulis was sacked by Gunnar Gíslason for "failing to exploit the foreign transfer market". The next day Dutch manager Johan Boskamp was named as Pulis' successor. Boskamp went about changing Stoke's style of play to be more attacking and possession based during pre-season and he brought in a number of foreign players. Most came from Belgian Pro League and mainly his old club Anderlecht. In came Carl Hoefkens, Hannes Sigurðsson, Junior N'Galula and Martin Kolář whilst Marlon Broomes, Paul Gallagher Mamady Sidibé, Peter Sweeney and Luke Chadwick the domestic based players to join the club.

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