On a day when he thought his former Coventry City squad were “there for the taking,” Mark Robins labelled his Stoke side’s defence as “unacceptable.”
The former Sky Blues manager was plainly upset with all three goals scored against the Potters on his first trip to the CBS Arena – two from Victor Torp in the first half before Bobby Thomas came up with a 97th-minute winner after Sam Gallagher had brought the visitors level after the break.
In his post-game press conference, a disgruntled Robins stated, “We started brightly.” We created three opportunities before they took a shot on goal. We didn’t really bother the custodian; you’ve got to take them. Take advantage of the available offers. That puts them on the back foot, and their first shot on goal finds the back of our net. It’s too simple; we’ve enabled him to jump into our centre back, who doesn’t see him coming, and then get a header and flick it into the far corner.
“We cannot accept that as a team; the second one was far worse. It simply allows players to saunter past the penalty box and score unopposed, which is unacceptable.”
He went on: “Then at half time, you know you’ve got people coming back to fitness that can make a difference and the two that came on were those and they made the difference.” We talked at halftime about achieving the next goal, which is what you can do, but it happened when I was here. You end up being two goals down rather than one, and you can recover and continue, but they demonstrated good character.
“We got back into the game with a little bit of nice play; they were sloppy, and we took advantage of it, but if we had taken advantage of the first three chances we had, it could have been a different afternoon for us.
“From that point forward, it appeared that we could win the game because their tails were up and they had some confidence in themselves. Wouter Burger’s backheel takes a deflection and results in a goal kick, which was disappointing.
“But to allow them to get a cross in, to allow Bobby Thomas to pick up a ball in our penalty area and allow him to drag it onto his left foot and then not stand in the way of a shot is unforgivable.” The three goals were dreadful, and that is where we are lacking. We make incredibly naïve decisions; we win the ball, knock it down to them in midfield; these are the things that cost us games, and they need to understand that.
But the good news is that we’re getting guys back who can make a difference in games, and we’ll see how soon we can bring them up to speed.”
Following his evaluation, the 55-year-old stated: “We could have caused them more problems, we turned it down, we were a bit negative and I don’t know why because these are there for the taking, I’ve got to say they’re there for the taking and today we could have won this game.”
