Having lost the last four games of last season and the first three games of this season Stoke were mighty relieved to get three points on the board from a 1-0 win over Norwich on Tuesday evening.
When they lost their final home game last season against Portsmouth, there was an angry reaction from supporters and manager Mark Robins vowed to "move people on who are mercenary, don't want to train and don't want to work hard". He was true to his word with sixteen departing by transfer or loan by the middle of August. He also wasted no time bringing in new faces with ten signings before the end of July. These included midfielders Ethan Galbraith from Swansea for a reported £10m and Djibril Soumaré from Braga (£3.4m). The club also paid Go Ahead Eagles £4.8m for striker Milan Smit but Robins stated that he could not give Smit the game time he needed to adjust to English football, so he has been loaned out again to Darmstadt 98 for the whole season. The squad has since been supplemented by the arrivals from Ipswich of George Hirst (permanent) and Ben Johnson (on loan) but has lost Sorba Thomas who left for Hull for £7.5m shortly before the window shut on Tuesday.
After their 1-4 defeat by Wolves last weekend there wasn't much patience left among the fans:
"Robins has to go I'm afraid. Nothing has changed since the disastrous end to last season, and the stats don't lie. The run of successive defeats is utterly embarrassing, and the excuses are becoming increasingly pathetic. This club urgently needs yet another change before it's too late."
Maybe the win against Norwich will have calmed things down a bit and perhaps their fans will reflect that away games at Southampton and Wolves and a home game against table-topping Swansea was not the easiest start.
Stoke are a side who love to attack using width. The wingers bomb forward beyond the central striker who will sit a little deeper than most, aiming to pull a centre back out of position. The wing backs are defenders first, not venturing too far beyond the halfway line if they can help it. This won’t leave much space to run into for Tyreece Campbell and whoever starts on the opposite wing which is where Nathan Jones’ hunt for good one v one wingers should come in helpful. Playing a very attacking no 10 might help too. Ethan Galbraith is dangerous on the ball and likes to roam forward in attack so doing what we can to pin him back is important. Karlan Grant was effective in that position in the second half against Preston. It would be a statement of intent if Nathan Jones were to start him there on Saturday but it could prove effective.
Despite being second best for most of the game against West Brom on Wednesday our team will be bouyed by coming away with what Nathan Jones described as "an excellent point." The squad should be able to approach Saturday's game in a confident mood but Stoke is a particularly unhappy hunting ground for us with twelve defeats in our last fifteen visits. Our one and only win since 1960 was in the 1997/98 promotion season when goals from Anthony Barness and John Robinson saw us prevail 2-1 on our unrelenting drive to the play-offs. Last season's defeat was particularly hard to take when, fresh from our 1-5 mauling by Southampton, we found ourselves 0-2 down at The Britannia after five minutes and ended up losing 0-3.
Tyreece Campbell scored the winner in the home fixture in March. Revenge was particularly sweet for Nathan Jones who enjoys a spiky relationship with the Stoke fans who like to encourage him to cheer up.
A bit more TC magic might help him do that.