Stoke can reach Europa League with Afellay & Shaqiri, says Adam

The midfielder is excited by the signing of the former Barcelona man, while the Potters are set to break their transfer record to bring in the Switzerland international

Stoke City can make a genuine bid for European qualification with the likes of new signing Ibrahim Afellay and the imminent arrival of Xherdan Shaqiri , according to Charlie Adam .

The Potters lost their opening game of the season 1-0 to Liverpool - described by Adam as "only one game" - which saw debuts for Afellay, Glen Johnson and loanee Marco van Ginkel.

But Adam remains excited about the potential of the squad, with the expected club-record arrival of Shaqiri set to be Mark Hughes's 10th signing since last season, and feels Europa League qualification is achievable.

"The ambition is to try to get into Europe," Adam told reporters.

"That would be a massive achievement. Liverpool was only one game, there are 37 more to go. We want to get into Europe, we want to taste it and that would be a step forward for us."

Since being promoted to the Premier League in 2008-09, Stoke have never finished higher than ninth - their result in the last two campaigns - but Adam said Hughes has developed "a great project".

"You can see the ability [Afellay] has," Adam said. "You don't play for Barcelona if you're a bad player. He likes to keep the ball and has good retention of it.

"Also, he has only been in the club a couple of weeks and not had much of a pre-season. Once he gets up to speed again and everybody gets to know how each other play we will be a decent team again this year."