I can well imagine Mark Robins choosing his words carefully as he admitted to nit-picking after such a big win in mid-week. The main thing was the result, which felt like a massive one, and players certainly gave their all.
So yes, you can pick and pick and pick, but the bottom line is credit to the players for their work rate on the fitness levels and with decision making as it is at this moment. Robins got the best out of them and every one of them gave everything they could.
Robins nailed it, I thought, with his line about Bae Junho in his post-match press conference. “What it boils down to, is Junho has worked incredibly hard defensively,” he said. “He’s not got everything right, none of them have, but the majority of the time he’s got it pretty spot on.”
Work your socks off for now. That’s what’s required in the short-term to deal with the situation at hand and it’ll get the backing of every Stoke fan. In the long-term, to make sure we’re not in this position again, we can be smarter as well as fitter.
I mention decision making, and so much of football comes down to that. For instance, you can look at Million Manhoef taking four touches in the penalty area trying to come inside onto his left foot, where the defenders are blocking his path. Sometimes he has to use his right foot to sidestep his man, even if it’s then to try to come back onto his left.
We’re seeing glimpses of what Ali Al-Hamadi can offer but he can’t make the amount of runs he wants in the channels or work that nearest centre-back as much as he’d like just now after spending the best 12 months warming Ipswich’s bench. He can be the man to get behind or a release pass.
Lewis Baker can then sit off that front line between two centre-halves, if they’re playing a three like Blackburn did, and your two players are occupying three of theirs. It’s positional sense but it requires a strong level of fitness to get there. You can do it once but you have to have a lot in the tank to do it three or four times.
You can see the manager wants them to do it consistently but it takes time and it’s work you build up in pre-season. It means it’s tense now because you want these things to happen, you see snippets of them happening, but you’re still only working towards it.
When the ball is wide on the left in the attacking third, I’d like to see Manhoef pushing on his defender so Al-Hamadi has support in those three main areas in the six-yard box – near post, centre and back. Fitness and decision making.
Junho was in the right place to intercept that silly centre-back risk pass across his own back third – and then he took advantage of it. He seized the moment, broke quickly and then eased up to link with Baker, who was in the right spot too, and Al-Hamadi made the correct run at the back. That was an excellent piece of work, a top class counter-attack.
That was evidence that we can do it to a high standard. The trick, in the end, will be to do it more regularly. We worked so hard to regain possession but then we gave it away too easily and put ourselves back under pressure. We were too impatient sometimes, too eager to do something without getting into the right support positions around the ball.
You have to give the player options to either retain possession or create and also be ready in case he loses it. Instead, we were too spread out. Again, that’s fitness and decision making – but we ended up having to run more because of it. No wonder players collapsed to the floor when the whistle went.
Viktor Johansson had an excellent performance. His early positional sense was there all night, communicating with his back line so loudly that I could hear him up at the top of the main stand. His footwork, concentration levels and those two saves were an inspiration.
It makes a huge difference to you as a side when you’ve got a keeper like that behind you. I can be sure that he was kicking himself after the Coventry game thinking he should have come for the cross on that third goal because he seems like a perfectionist who takes everything personally. You want a player who doesn’t accept second best in himself and his teammates.
A special mention for Wouter Burger, who did well in midfield too. The three in there all did well, with Jordan Thompson sitting, Burger the passer and Baker pushing on to support Al-Hamadi while linking with Burger.
Now we head to Millwall and a clash with Alex Neil. He’ll be up for it so we have to make sure our players are up for it more, getting one over on him and getting another big win. We can build on Wednesday by making sure we close the door behind us when needed – then lock it.
Stoke ran and ran as much as they can do at the moment. They’ll have to do it again nine more times. There’s still a long way to go and it’s a mad scramble in this division. Keep at it.
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