Mark Robins spells out urgency of Stoke City situation ahead of Blackburn Rovers clash
Mark Robins spells out urgency of Stoke City situation ahead of Blackburn Rovers clash
Mark Robins knows Stoke City cannot place emphasis on anything other than results as the fight to stay in the Championship heads into a home match against Blackburn Rovers.
Stoke are back at the bet365 Stadium tomorrow night (8pm) having had to dust themselves off after a 97th minute kick to the guts on Saturday at Coventry, when they had come back from 2-0 down to 2-2 only to lose 3-2.
Robins was not prepared to say his team had been unlucky, however, admitting they had paid the price for not making more of chances at one end and giving them up too easily through naivety at the other.
And he knows what it would mean in a tightly packed league table if they can start putting that right on Wednesday night, followed by a trip to Alex Neil’s Millwall on Saturday.
Robins said: “We’ve got another two games before the international break and it’d be nice to pick up six points, but we’ve got to start winning games. We’ve got to start picking these points up where they are available.
“There’s no point hiding behind anything. Yes, performances are going to improve because of the nature of the squad dynamic changing now. Those performances will improve but we’ve got to put the work in. We’ve really got to work hard.”
He added: “(The Coventry game was) naivety added to not putting the ball in the back of the net. We made good chances, good, clear chances. If you turn those down and then at the other end of the pitch you’re a little bit naïve as well – and you don’t win enough duels, and they won more duels than us in the game. That has a bearing on the result.”
Stoke were backed by 3,000 supporters at the weekend and Robins wants to reward them with a home win in mid-week.
He said: “I’ve said before, we really need them. When they are in full voice it does give the players that boost, that lift. We have to see games out (like Coventry), which was unacceptable. We can’t keep doing that. We’ve got to pick up points at the end of it. We’ve got to appreciate the support we’ve got and keep doing the right things to foster that good relationship.
“We don’t win enough duels as a team, which gives opponents the confidence to keep going. There is enough in there – and enough in there because we’re getting players closer to where they need to be although they’re still not there – but the quality is there. You can see the quality we could send onto the pitch from the bench (on Saturday).
“We also need players to understand they’ve got to run around and stop them getting the ball, stop easy balls forward, stop easy balls into your penalty area. We let Matt Grimes put a ball into our penalty area because we didn’t work hard enough to stop it. We think it’s ok but it’s not ok, it’s really, really, really annoying.”
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