Mark Robins clear what Stoke City focus has to be as he comes through meeting with diehards
Mark Robins, not quite a month into the job yet, enjoyed his first face-to-face meeting with Stoke City fans on Thursday night in Ricardo’s.
Season card holders were invited to a meet the manager event and the timing might have been kinder. Stoke had lost on a deflating night in Portsmouth 24 hours previously and Robins and the squad hadn’t arrived back in the Potteries until 3am that morning.
But Robins comes across as not only understanding the importance of this relationship but enjoying it too. He doesn’t need telling twice about the size of the challenge he has taken on – and those who have tried before – but he is adamant he can get it right by focusing on one step at a time and making sure that supporters are with him and the team all along the way.
READ MORE: Gary Rowett delivers Stoke City verdict as he prepares for bet365 Stadium return
After all, he had only just seen the impact that a vociferous home crowd had at Fratton Park, lifting their team and emphasising the momentum.
“When the support is behind you it’s always the same,” he said.
“Our support is really good but you have to be together and feel together. I spoke at the forum last night and spoke about the importance of that – and I spoke about it before when I came in too – about being stronger together. There’s no truer statement.
“We have to foster that relationship with supporters who are there through thick and thin – and a lot of it has been thin. We’ve got to focus on the here and now and getting this right, this step, then doing it step by step so we get back eventually.
“We can’t focus on the Premier League, we can’t focus on all the good times in the recent past, we’ve got to focus on getting right here and now in order that we can build so it can become a reality again. I think everybody knows that’s why we’re in it, that’s why I’m here, I want to manage in the Premier League eventually but there are steps to take before that and everybody has to remain together.
“It’s never linear either, we would love it to be, but in my experience it’s never been like that. It’s always been a tricky path you have to navigate but I’ve got experience to get through those moments.”
On paper it was actually pretty linear at Coventry, going from League Two in 2018 to being a penalty shoot-out away from the Premier League in 2023 and an FA Cup semi-final in 2024.
“Believe me it wasn’t,” said Robins, almost breaking into a laugh.
Tony Pulis, when he first held one of these sessions with fans, asked John Rudge why the room was so noisy before he made his entrance - and there had been so many turning up that some were being turned away at the door - to be told, "They're always like that before an execution."
It was standing room only again in Ricardo’s this time around but perhaps the atmosphere was a little less intimidating. Supporters were treated to a free drink and bit of food and had a post-Robins audience with Terry Conroy and Noel Blake.
“It was good,” said the manager. “I think everybody was really engaged and listened, they were really good. The questions came from Lucas (Yeomans, Radio Stoke), who conducted the interview but eventually we’ll get interactive so people can ask questions live and we can get a response from that. But it was really good, I really enjoyed it.”
In the here and now, Robins is preparing to take on one of his predecessors in the Stoke hot seat as Gary Rowett brings in-form Oxford United to town (Saturday, 12.30pm). There will be 20-odd thousand people in the stadium who know exactly what to expect from a Rowett team.
Robins said: “Absolutely. We played Birmingham a week before we played in the semi-final of the FA Cup last season and they beat us 3-0 at St Andrew’s. It’s a different team, different circumstances, we’re a different team, both at different clubs… but Gary’s style of football and the way he wants to play, they’ll be aggressive. They may play on a counter-attack, on transitions, or they may go in a totally different way. I would imagine they will try to do the same as Portsmouth the other day and try to rough us up a little bit. We’ve got to stand up if that’s the case.
“We’ve just faced it and I’m sure we will be better. If we played that game at Portsmouth again I’m sure it wouldn’t be the same or the same outcome but unfortunately we can’t do that and we have to move on to this one.”
While you're here, we have launched a new WhatsApp group to deliver the latest Stoke news directly to your phone. Click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in. If for some reason you decide you no longer want to be in our community, you can leave at any time by clicking on the name at the top of your screen and clicking 'Exit Group', simple as that.
