Mark Robins on Stoke City defence, clean sheets and moments of madness
It has gone a little under the radar that Stoke City kept their fourth clean sheet in six league games at the weekend because of the struggle to score at the other end.
There were shut outs against Sunderland and Burnley when Ryan Shawcross was in caretaker charge and against Plymouth and Oxford when Mark Robins took over, with a pretty settled back five holding fort aside unless injuries have intervened.
Viktor Johansson has been first name on the teamsheet in goal behind Junior Tchamadeu at right-back and Ashley Phillips at centre-half alongside either Ben Wilmot or Michael Rose, who stepped in on Saturday as Wilmot nursed a foot problem. Enda Stevens has returned to fitness at left-back, with Lynden Gooch then Josh Wilson-Esbrand relieving the veteran when needed to try to keep the influential veteran available for as long as possible.
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Robins is largely encouraged by all this but, just like the 20-odd thousand Stoke fans, knows there has still been a danger of a moment of madness or mistake undoing the 89-and-a-half minutes of pretty solid work. That is especially dangerous when Stoke aren’t scoring.
Last time out it was Johansson, the runaway contender for player of the year, who suddenly wanted the earth to swallow him up when he was dragged wide to the right to sweep up a long ball, tried to shepherd it out for a throw-in but had his pockets picked as it slowed up by the touchline. A sigh of relief as Ole Romeny hit the crossbar when the winner seemed almost inevitable.
“Well, these are the things that we do,” said Robins. “It’s almost like we are shooting ourselves in the foot and thankfully they missed – and that was really their only opportunity and we gave it to them, like we had given three goals away the other night (at Portsmouth), when they didn’t have to do anything to beat us. Those are the frustrations.
“I thought Michael Rose came in and defended really well and, not only that, I thought he was decent on the ball as well. He will be good for Ash as well in Ben Wilmot’s absence. He’s stepped in and done a brilliant job and he’s done himself no harm whatsoever. Hopefully he can continue in that vein.
“I thought we defended, when we needed to, pretty well for the most part. Enda was outstanding. He’s 34 against (Przemyslaw) Placheta, who has had a second wind and a new lease of life at Oxford this season. He kept him really quiet to the point when he got brought off. He was really important for us, as was Goochy in front of him. To get him back was important and some of his delivery was really good although he tired towards the end, with about 15 minutes to go.
“When you’re looking to make changes it has to improve the side and at that point I didn’t see we had enough to bring people on to go and make a difference in that final third just yet. That’s going to take a bit of time as well. That’s the frustration for everyone.”
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