With the club now on a high after gaining promotion back to England's top tier, Tony Waddington wasted no time in bringing in new signings to make sure relegation was avoided.

[1] The first big name signing he made was that of Peter Dobing for a club record fee of £37,500 from Manchester City and £6,000 for Bobby Irvine a young goalkeeper from Linfield.

[1] Waddington was not happy with his defence and went out and bought Calvin Palmer from Nottingham Forest for £30,000 and George Kinnell from Aberdeen for £27,000 and another 'keeper Lawrie Leslie from West Ham United.

[1] With Ritchie in full flow, things improved and in nine matches from early October to mid November, Stoke remained unbeaten.

This proved to be insufficient as Leicester won the return leg at Filbert Street 3–2 giving them a 4–3 aggregate win and with it the League Cup.