'No one wants to hear that' - Mark Robins has his say on Stoke City's big problem
Mark Robins has spelled out the importance of creating more opportunities to score goals as the priority for Stoke City.
Stoke are the Championship’s lowest scorers with 28 goals from 31 matches so far this season, less than half the number of table-topping top scorers Leeds United (66). The number is 11 fewer than expected according to the data collectors – only behind Coventry (12.6) and Swansea (12.5) in terms of not taking as many chances as they should have.
But Stoke have only taken 339 shots. Only Preston (320), Oxford (319) and Plymouth (302) have had fewer than that. The stats suggest that Stoke have been less willing to take on shots that have less chance of going in although Robins can point to moments like Nathan Lowe’s goal at West Brom – turning in a wayward effort from Junior Tchamadeu – which was created by the circumstances that are created by just taking a shot in itself.
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Robins is preparing for a home game against Swansea on Saturday (3pm) hoping for his first league goal at the bet365 Stadium, having scored three there in the FA Cup last weekend against Cardiff.
There have been six blanks in the last 10 league games and Robins was asked at his pre-match press conference what he had learned from a mid-week defeat at Bristol City.
He said: “You hope that people learn from mistakes that we make but that’s not necessarily the case. You would hope that people understand that communication is key in terms of distances between units but also distances between each individual. You can’t switch off from a player that’s around you and you need to be aware of what is around you.
“It’s not just about focusing on the football. I think we ball watch a heck of a lot in football in general but the game is totally different. Scan all the time.
“In terms of the learning, that’s an ongoing thing, always. You find yourself repeating yourself, you find yourself repeating yourself, quite a lot.
“It’s not just young players, senior players can get caught between looking at the ball and not communicating, which gives you a difficult position to be in at times.
“There were disappointments the other night, that was clear for everybody and do it really quickly. The fact that we’ve got another game so soon can sometimes be a blessing.
“The turnover is a challenge as well. As a staff we’re in all the time because we’ve got to prepare sessions, prepare meetings and the information we’ve got to give to players before this game.
"We don’t want to inundate them with information but make sure they’re aware of what they are about to face – but it is about us. We have to focus on us and what we need to do because clearly we need to create more opportunities to score goals. It’s as simple as that.
“There are some really nice passing patterns and while that’s brilliant, no one wants to hear about nice passing patterns. It’s a means to an end, it’s not just passing for the sake of passing.
"Ultimately we’re trying to keep the possession of the football as much as we possibly can do, not put the ball at risk too much – but you have to do that from time to time, certainly in the final third, and we have to look to shoot, get people into those positions and want to score a goal.
“The desire to score a goal is something that isn’t in everybody, it’s not something they live for, but we need those players to go and do that. So what did we learn on Wednesday? It’s about some of the things we don’t like to see but knowing what we want to do, clearly, this weekend.”
Robins hinted that he was hoping to deliver good news in terms of players who had been out for a while with injury. Stoke were missing Ben Wilmot, Lynden Gooch, Sam Gallagher, Million Manhoef, Sol Sidibe, Eric Bocat and Enda Stevens in mid-week while Jordan Thompson returned to the bench for the first time since a hernia operation.
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