Mark Robins shrugs off transfer window issues as Stoke City hope for post-deadline day boost
This was the quietest deadline day at Stoke City since they landed back in the Championship, the only new face not a new face at all. Ryan Mmaee is back, although he is coming back from Rapid Vienna a few weeks away from being fit having not played since he left Stoke back at the start of September.
The 27-year-old has had no luck in Austria. He was brought in to ease an injury crisis in their attack, suffered a quad injury in his first training session, had a couple of set-backs during his rehabilitation and then injured his hamstring when he ran out in a winter break friendly last week.
In the days before that, the noises coming out of Vienna had been suggesting they still backed him to be a hit in the second half of the season. “I am still convinced that Ryan Mmaee would have been a good fit for us and is a very strong player,” said their sporting director Markus Katzer last night. “It is unfortunate that he has been so unlucky with injuries.”
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But injuries have been the underlying narrative of Stoke’s transfer window, along with Financial Fair Play constraints. Stoke, with the budget they’ve had in the last few weeks, have put their faith in players they already had on the books.
It is no secret that the club has had to tighten its belt considerably after the £18m intake of 2023, when Mmaee was one of the key arrivals. Wouter Burger, another, was subject to a late bid from FC Midtjylland in Denmark – too late for Stoke to contemplate considering he is a regular in the starting XI.
Robins has had an extremely tight squad in his first few weeks in charge but that will hopefully start to ease over the next couple of weeks. Darius Lipsiuc was the only real youth player in the match day squad at Hull at the weekend and Stoke sanctioned his exit on loan to Walsall yesterday afternoon so he can get his first experience of men’s football.
Mmaee is the third player to be called back from a loan by Mark Robins, following Nathan Lowe – who had been in exceptional form at Walsall – and Lewis Baker, who had been on the fringes of a Blackburn team pushing for the play-offs.
Robins, who was appointed on the first day of the window, has taken the situation he has walked into on its merits and been pragmatic, unpanicked and confident with the way Stoke have tackled it. There have been seven games to fit in during this time too and a new backroom staff to settle in.
“We're in a position where we are doing things by the book,” he said. “We do things by the book. We can't go and throw a load of money around that we're not allowed to. We are doing things by the book.”
Mmaee, Eric Bocat, Ben Gibson, Jordan Thompson, Ben Pearson, Bosun Lawal and Million Manhoef are yet to feature in this regime while Sam Gallagher limped off in Robins’ first game in charge and Ben Wilmot has missed the last two.
The attack has probably been the biggest challenge and it’s been reshaped since the evening of January 12.
The strike department at that time was Tom Cannon (about to be recalled), Gallagher (injured), Manhoef (injured), Niall Ennis, Andre Vidigal, Emre Tezgel, Lewis Koumas and Bae Junho. Now it’s Nathan Lowe, Ali Al-Hamadi, Gallagher (injured), Mmaee (injured), Manhoef (injured), Vidigal, Tezgel, Koumas and Junho.
Stoke wanted to add a winger with pace but walked away from a deal for Hibs’ Elie Youan and wouldn’t or couldn’t pay what Bristol City wanted for Mark Sykes. Josh Wilson-Esbrand, who has joined from Man City, was used wide on the left last Saturday.
Robins is convinced he can get more out of the players he already has as confidence starts to grow. “We've just got to learn to take the handbrake off, free themselves up and play in a way I know they can do - because I've seen it. It's not just me guessing things, they can do it. I've seen it in training and I've seen it in parts of games,” he said after the Hull game.
No one is saying it is going to be easy - although just shooting more when in good positions, as Robins keeps saying, should be - and no one is expecting magic but everyone, or as near as possible, seems to have faith that the new boss and his coaching team will have a positive impact on the players he works with.
It is very tight down at the wrong end of the division but Stoke have their fate in their own hands. The squad didn’t immediately get stronger on deadline day but it will beyond it. Or that's the hope and the expectation. Time will soon tell.
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