Paul Ukighir
Mark Robins, the manager of Stoke City, acknowledges that his team frequently shoots themselves in the foot, but Enda Stevens is praised for his “outstanding” performance.
The fact that Stoke City maintained their fourth clean sheet in six league games over the weekend due to their inability to score has gone somewhat unnoticed.
With a fairly stable back five standing firm unless injuries have intervened, there were shutouts against Sunderland and Burnley when Ryan Shawcross was in caretaker control and against Plymouth and Oxford when Mark Robins took over.
In goal, Viktor Johansson has been the first name on the teamsheet, behind Ashley Phillips at center-half and Junior Tchamadeu at right-back. On Saturday, Rose filled in for Wilmot due to a foot injury. In an effort to keep the valuable veteran available for as long as possible, Lynden Gooch and Josh Wilson-Esbrand have taken over for Enda Stevens at left-back since the veteran’s return to fitness.
All of this gives Robins a lot of encouragement, but like the roughly 20,000 Stoke supporters, he is aware that there is still a chance that an error or moment of insanity might ruin the 89 and a half minutes of mainly strong effort. That is particularly risky when Stoke isn’t scoring.
Johansson, the clear favorite to win player of the year, was dragged wide to the right to sweep up a long ball last time out. He attempted to shepherd it out for a throw-in but was picked up by the touchline as it slowed down, and he suddenly wanted the earth to swallow him up. There was a sigh of relief when Ole Romeny struck the crossbar just as the win appeared to be certain.
“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.”
