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Stoke boss Mark Hughes is closing in on a £13.5million deal for Ukrainian winger Andriy Yarmolenko.

Hughes confirmed his interest in the 25-year-old Dynamo Kiev flyer after seeing his stars beat a Singapore Select XI 2-0 in the third-place play-off game at the Barclays Asia Trophy.

Stoke missed out on Inter Milan's Xherdan Shaqiri after the 23-year-old Swiss international snubbed a move to the Potters following talks with Hughes.

And now they’ve turned to talented winger Yarmolenko, who has 49 caps for his country and has previously been the subject of interest from Liverpool and Tottenham.

(Image: Getty)

Hughes said: “He’s the level of player we could like to bring in if we can. We’ve missed out on a couple of players we weren’t able to get over the line. I’m still hopeful to be able to get a player of real top top quality, and if we can do that we will probably be done for the window.

“It would have to be a player of his type, yeah but there’s a lot of speculation. We’ve had conversations with a lot of people that have connections with good players and those conversations have taken place since the New Year.”

Steve Sidwell tapped in Stoke’s opener early in the game and Marko Arnautovic scored an eye-catching second after 72 minutes to leave Hughes happy with the work-out.