Mark Robins has been in the job less than a month, but the enormity of the task facing him asStoke City manager is frighteningly apparent. A run of one win in 13 games has left his new club just two points clear of the Championship drop zone.
To be fair, they are also four games since their last defeat – a 2-0 reverse to league leaders Leeds United – but they are on a run of three successive draws, and that has dragged them dangerously close to the bottom three ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Portsmouth (7.45pm).
Pompey are the team currently in the last relegation place but with the opportunity to leapfrog the Potters should they win at Fratton Park. And they will be out for revenge after losing the reverse fixture 6-1 in October.
Sky pundit and former Wolves, West Brom and Sunderland striker Don Goodman admits to be baffled by Stoke’s ongoing problems, nearly seven years since they were relegated from the Premier League. In that time, they have yet to register a top-half finish, and Goodman says: “It’s going to take at least one summer transfer window for Robins to get them on the road to recovery. I think they’ve been in the bottom half almost every season since being relegated from the top tier, which is baffling.
“The bottom nine or 10 teams in the Championship are in a relegation scrap; all will feel they have a chance to get clear and I’d agree, with the exception of Plymouth who, arguably, are going to find it remarkably difficult from the position they’re in.
“So staying up would be a success for Stoke and Robins looks like a safe pair of hands; he’s been there, seen it and done it. It’s interesting that he’s got a totally new coaching team to work with, as he had at Coventry City this season and so you just hope that it works out well for him, otherwise he could be managing in League 1 next season.
“They’re two points off the drop zone. They’re on a run of just one win in 13, and the win was a bit of a lucky last-minute win against Sunderland. They’re not winning games currently, so any finish above that dotted line will be deemed acceptable.”
Interviewed by the website casino.co.uk, Goodman highlighted where he thought Stoke had gone wrong since relegation in May 2018.
He added: “This is a club with a really good owner, a genuine owner with a love for Stoke City who desperately wants to see them back in the Premier League. But even the ownership would admit that they’ve made a lot of wrong decisions, in terms of managerial or head coach appointments.
“Whoever’s been in charge of player recruitment; I don’t know how much influence the managers have had, but they’ve got this area badly wrong, making some terrible signings over the years and wasting money.
“Bad decision after bad decision has been made, and they’ll be praying that the Mark Robins appointment is the one that they finally get spot on.”
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