Stoke boss Mark Robins expressed his concerns over the dwindling interest in the FA Cup after witnessing a meagre 15,000 fans turn out at the Stadium of Light to see his team edge past Sunderland with a 2-1 victory. As someone who has tasted FA Cup glory with Manchester United as a player and guided Coventry City to the semi-finals just last year, Robins admits he finds the low attendances troubling for the future health of the storied competition.

Stoke secured their spot in the fourth round with a timely extra-time strike from substitute Niall Ennis, following an early opener by Tom Cannon and a levelling goal from Milan Aleksic of Sunderland in the second half. Robins named a robust starting eleven and made minimal changes in a bid to attack the game.

He said: "I’m really glad we got through. The lads deserve credit for sticking at it and the two goals came from our good press. It was two young teams with people making mistakes when they didn’t need to. There wasn’t many chances."

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It was the poor turnout that really disappointed Robins, however. Having led Coventry City to the semi-final last season, it is a competition that holds a lot of good memories for the experienced boss.

"No crowd really," he said. "It’s a really weird one this. It’s the FA Cup. Where are the people? I understand the cost of things and it must be really biting. The cold is biting, the finances are biting. It isn’t good.

"It’s really worrying and sad. I’ve seen there’s been empty stadia up and down the country and it’s not good. This stadium normally has 50,000 people in it and absolutely rocking so it’s a bit of a surprise.

“Thank you to everyone who came because that’s really important, and particularly our supporters. I’m glad we got through. It was tough watching at times but it’s a start for us. If you can’t play brilliantly then stick at it, which we did.”

For Sunderland, who are well positioned in the Championship and chasing promotion to the Premier League, it was a first home defeat of the season. New signing Enzo Le Fee, who has joined on loan from Roma, was introduced to the fans before kick-off.

Boss Regis Le Bris, who made five changes to his side, said: “We started a bit slowly. After that we were in the game we wanted to play.

“After the first goal, with the team we had today we played good football and we tried until the end to score.

“We deserved the equaliser and we could have probably won before full-time but it wasn’t the case. In extra time both teams were tired and that led to a mistake from us.”