Mark Robins focuses on work to do as Stoke City fight for win at Sunderland
Mark Robins was pleased with Stoke City’s spirited rare win at Sunderland to book their place in the FA Cup fourth round – as well as being under no illusions about the work ahead.
The new boss was happy with how good pressing from his forwards forced both goals at the Stadium of Light – leading to an early Tom Cannon penalty and a late Niall Ennis winner in extra-time – but he knows his young squad is very much a work in progress.
Robins, who has only overseen a week of training in the job, is relishing the chance to address a few key points with willing players and is hoping to do it as quickly as possible.
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"I'm really glad we got through,” he said. I think the lads deserve congratulations for sticking in. They stuck at it and two goals came from our good play, good press, winning it back. The first one was a penalty when Koumas running through, got into the box and got the touch, got brought down and Tom Cannon scored.
"Then it just became a game when people made mistakes. It was two good teams but people were making mistakes when they didn't need to. It carried on like that for a while and there weren't many chances in it.
"There was no crowd really and it's a real weird one this. It's the FA Cup, where are the people? I understand the cost of things and where people are and it must be real biting. The cold is biting, the finances are biting, it's not good, it isn't good. It's really worrying, it's really sad.
"I've seen there has been empty stadia up and down the country and this club nearly has 40,000 people here and it's absolutely rocking so it's a bit of a surprise. Thank you to everyone who came because that's really important, particularly our support that have travelled for a long distance.
"I'm glad we got through on the back of that. It was tough going and tough watching at times. We were in some good positions with the ball but we ended up taking too long and going back into pressure and not getting out the way we want to get out but it's a start. And if you can't play brilliantly, stick at it.
"I'm really pleased for Niall to get the winner because he did great, he closed him down, won the ball back, went through and kept a cool head and found the net.
"I'm pleased with the two finishes and a lot of the performance was pretty good from young players. We make some really elementary errors and that has to be a part of the learning process. That's what you get with some young players, there's a bit of naivety. They don't have know-how yet and that only comes through playing and learning.
"Now we have a period when we can work into West Brom next week now."
