Sam Gallagher might feel the final stage of the season comes at the wrong time for him – two games into his latest comeback from injury Stoke City are now on an international break and will return with only seven games to play.
However, the striker knows both he and his team can prove plenty in the remaining month-and-a-bit, not least putting a finishing touch to a campaign that promised so much and threatens to deliver so little.
Few will need reminding Stoke were second after 17 games and were outside the play-off spots by a single point when Gallagher scored his first of the campaign at Norwich in January. Since then it’s been the law of diminishing returns.
Gallagher returned to the treatment table for two months, joined by almost an entire XI of team-mates, and Mark Robins has become exasperated at the lack of solutions compared to the number of problems that have mounted up.
Stoke go into the final break of the season in 15th but still with a top ten finish well within their grasp. It would n’t take much – and might amount to even less in practical terms – but the Potters could seal their highest finish in eight years if they can restore a bit of pride.
The 30-year-old has urged them to do just that: “The start of the season was amazing. I don’t think we were at our sort of point, even then,” he told StokeonTrentLive. “I think there was still a lot more that we were looking to do and improve on.
“We didn’t feel like we were near the finished product but we were starting to show our potential as a team.
“Then, excluding my injury, we had a lot of other injuries in important positions on the pitch and then if people haven’t had time to play in different positions, we’ve had a lot of people playing left side as a right footer or Sorba’s [Thomas] been playing right back in certain games and bits like that.
“So it has been frustrating because we know when the whole group is together what it’s capable of.
“At the same time, you see all Championship team have good spells, have bad spells, where we had such a good spell at the start, it’s kind of even more frustrating that we had that tough spell around the back end of Christmas, which really had an impact on our standing in the league.
“Then once you do go on a tough run like that it’s hard to then turn the tide a bit and get the points back in the bag.
“I think it’s just trying to win as many games. Everyone says it every week, but trying to win as many games as we can because we want to have that pride for ourselves to finish in the table where we deserve to be – or where we feel we deserve to be.
“I don’t think we’ve done ourselves justice for the position that we’re at because you saw our potential and you saw what the team was capable of – and I think that’s been the biggest disappointment. But we’re still able to finish as high as we can in the league is what we’re going to aim for.”
Discussion about this post