Mark Robins knows Stoke City problems and how to fix them…
Mark Robins talks to StokeonTrentLive about a whirlwind first chapter at Stoke City and the confidence he can find solutions to problems whether they are straightforward or not..
Mark Robins gets his first chance to take a deep breath and reflect on a frantic first 10 weeks in charge at Stoke City as he heads into an international break, knowing there are challenges to meet, believing he knows what they are and confident he can do it.
Robins was appointed manager on New Year’s Day, watching that afternoon as caretaker Ryan Shawcross oversaw a draw at Burnley. He has since had 15 games and one transfer window to get to really know the squad, certainly get to know the treatment room and understand how things work at a new club after spending the best part of eight years at a rival.
The priority has always been the here and now and trying to haul Stoke up the Championship table and away from danger. Not far behind that has been trying to work out what to do to make sure that the club doesn’t get into this position again.
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Both are tricky. The first hasn’t been helped by injuries to key players, often long-term injuries that still need managing when players are back. The second has beaten eight men over the last seven or
The first step, on that score, has been to identify what things to work on in the first place – and a big one on the to-do list is the appointment of a new head of recruitment and making sure that Stoke give themselves as much chance as possible to get their transfer business right this summer.
Whatever happens from now until May it will be a huge few months beyond that. Stoke have five players on loan and eight first teamers coming to the end of their contracts, plus at least three who might want to leave in search of game time and a couple of assets which have value to try to meet the financial blackhole left by Neil and his technical director Ricky Martin.
Robins said: “There are certain areas that we need improvement with and on and those were identified really early, to be fair. There are key things for change with different elements but they do come down the line and they do take a bit of time. The first one is to try to get a new head of recruitment to head up that department because we’ve got a big window coming up. Summer windows are always the biggest of the lot so can we get that right? There’s a load of work going on on that front.
“That’s for the future. For now, changes or tweaks to little things in game and during training continue to happen and happen on a daily basis depending on what happens with individuals. That always moves but also it’s embedding all the things we talk about and make sure they become habits around the place. There are those things to do and things are never straightforward.”
