Mark Robins excited by chance to work with 'really good young' Stoke City striker
Mark Robins is looking forward to working with Tom Cannon as he starts to get to know the Stoke City squad.
Robins’s success at Coventry City came from having regular scorers from Marc McNulty and Matt Godden to Haji Wright, Ellis Simms and Viktor Gyokeres, who is now one of the leading lights of European football.
Stoke have struggled to find a forward who can find the net consistently over the same time frame – and none has scored 15 since Ricard Fuller and Liam Lawrence both did in 2007/08.
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Cannon, however, has already reached double figures in league and cup on a season-long loan from Leicester City and his new manager is backing him to be a real threat as long as teammates can help carve opportunities.
Robins said: “Tom’s been good all the way through (the season). Sometimes the service has been a little bit sparse between chances and we’ve got to try to get to a point when chances are coming and he’ll finish.
“He’s a certain type of striker where he’ll find space off the back and he’ll run. We saw that (against Plymouth) when he nearly got in and when he (had a collision with the goalkeeper) and I thought he’d got on the end of that and he always gets across people well.
“He understands the game. He’s only 22 and he’s a really good young player.”
An update is expected later this week on Sam Gallagher, who was withdrawn early in the second half against Plymouth last Saturday in hope he had pre-empted strain on his hamstrings.
Players were given a chance to catch their breath and “clear all the fatigue out of their systems” after five games in 15 days before work stepped up seriously again on Tuesday ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup third round trip to Sunderland.
It is the third of a quickfire triple header between the two clubs, with Sunderland having won the first 2-1 thanks to a late goal at the Stadium of Light on December 7 then Stoke winning the reverse on December 29 thanks to an injury-time blast from Cannon.
Robins planned the chance for the squad and new coaching set-up to get to know each other better at Clayton Wood this week but, having reached the semi-final last season with Coventry and having won the cup as a player, he knows the feel-good factor value of a good run.
“The emphasis changes now,” he said. “It’s the FA Cup and people like FA Cup runs.”
Replays have been scrapped this season for third round ties. Stoke and Sunderland have been pulled out against each on four previous occasions in this competition over the years but have always needed at least one replay to be separated.
The match will go to extra-time if the scores are level after 90 minutes and then a penalty shoot-out if necessary.
