Mark Robins knows Stoke City cannot afford to start as poorly or concede goals like the ones they did against Cardiff.
Stoke have let in poor goals inside the first eight minutes of three out of four matches now – and this time in an FA Cup fourth round tie, as against Portsmouth in the league recently, they were 2-0 down soon afterwards before starting to find their feet.
Lewis Koumas scored twice and Lewis Baker put Stoke ahead with a penalty that should have secured a place in the last 16 before further poor defending sent the Potters to a penalty shoot-out and defeat.
Robins said: “In a game you can’t give goals away like we did. They were really poor goals to give away. They’ve not really had to work for anything whereas with ours we had to work for every one of them. While we went 2-0 down, we kept plugging away and showed some really good character. That’s the first thing but can we please just make sure we play properly from the start and not give those chances away.
“They continued to get chances because it became a basketball game and that was a disappointing thing, going away from what we’ve been doing in the league games. It’s a cup tie but the mentality should be exactly the same, it shouldn’t be any different.
“We concede two goals but get back into it with three really good goals to be fair, two from Lewis Koumas and a well-taken penalty from Lewis Baker and we get our noses in front. Then we contrive to concede another goal which was really, really disappointing.
“There is some good play in there amongst it but we scored three goals, conceded three goals. I’ll take the goals we scored as a positive, the goals we conceded were poor, but we’ve got to move on from the game as quickly as we possibly can do.
“It’s disappointing to go out and once it gets to a penalty shoot-out it’s a test of nerve, skill. We started off ok with that but it went against us.
“The disappointing thing was enforced changes that you have to make because of people going down with cramp. We shouldn’t be in that position when people are getting cramp from 120 minutes of football but it is what it is, that’s where we find ourselves and disappointing though it is we have to take it on the chin and get on with it.”
Robins can still pick out improvements in some of Stoke’s attacking play – these were the first goals they had scored at home under his watch – and he was pleased to hand a debut to Favour Fawunmi, who had only signed the previous day.
He said: “There are a lot of good things within the game, I’ve got to say. Wouter Burger’s performance was outstanding, his contribution was brilliant, I thought Lewis Koumas was really, really good. There were some good cameos from people coming back in.
“The youngster Favour Fawunmi is a talent that was found only the other day, having a trial game on Tuesday. For him to come in and have a taste of first team football is exactly what we needed. We’ve obviously got players out through being cup tied and we’re hopeful we can start to get others back as quickly as possible, which will make a difference for us moving forwards.
“I’m hoping that nobody has picked up anything too severe. Trying to get Pearo some minutes and Bosun Lawal some minutes and those were extended by extra-time for Pearo.
“I’m disappointed but we take it on the chin.”
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