This is survival week - and I want to see one thing from Stoke City players

Never mind Donald Trump’s liberation day, it’s survival week for Stoke City . A trip to Preston North End, a home game against Luton Town and away day at Cardiff City – let’s roar into it and make sure we have one foot in the Championship next season by the time the final whistle blows next Saturday. We probably need eight points or so from the last seven games and at Preston – who had a tough cup game last Sunday and a mid-week match at Derby – I want to see the Stoke players hit the levels they reached for last weekend’s win over Queens Park Rangers.

Mark Robins sent out a balanced team and I want to continue to get a good seven, eight or nine out of 10 performance from everyone in each fixture we have left. Do that and we’ll have no problems at all. Dig in, keep your concentration, work your socks off to help your teammate and we’ll get to the 50-point mark as quickly as possible.



I was impressed by the movement for our goals. The flow, rhythm and timing was all there and the understanding about forward play. It takes a lot of work to get to that point but they’ve got the players to do it and we’ve got the right guy in charge.

It was the system we’re after, with a sitting midfielder linking with two centre-backs and goalkeeper as the base of your spine; another midfielder who can sit in if needed with that but can also push forward and has short and long-range passing vision and awareness; another midfielder who can join in with the forward player and can work the ball through central areas – and has a long shot on him too. That’s your backbone. Then your centre-forward can make runs in behind to stretch the opposition and on the outside you’ve got your full-backs and wingers who can work together – one goes inside, one goes out – and give you that balance.

Once we get into the attacking third with that shape you have seven or eight players joining in so you can use quick and clever play to move the opposition around and create chances. People describe it as clicking but it takes a lot of groundwork to get to that position – and once you’re there it means the quick and exciting football we all want. We’ve got dribblers and players who can turn with and without the ball and make defenders work.

There will inevitably be changes to the squad in the summer but let’s hope we keep this template and build on it. We need to make sure that we go into next season with as close as we can to two players in each of these positions so that we are not shaken up when there are the injuries and suspensions that always come throughout a campaign. You want to have a player who can come in and play in the same style as the one they are replacing so you don’t have to constantly change formation and plans.

You need a clear recruitment plan for each position, always keeping an eye on succession planning, including who is coming through the academy and ready to force their way into Robins’ plans. It’s building a team to take us forward, knowing when you have to sell and doing your homework so that, when you try to find a replacement, they’re normally better than the fella you’re letting go. It was interesting to read that new head of recruitment Ian Torrance had a reputation for that kind of planning when he was working at Southampton and fingers crossed he can help get that department working like a machine at Clayton Wood.

We are already starting to see the impact from having someone who comes across as knowing what he’s doing in the dug out in Robins. He had a good grounding a long time ago under Alex Ferguson and he’s since had enough experience in management to know how to gain results in pressure situations. He’s worked the oracle with injuries, fitness levels, loans and all the rest of it and I’m confident he’ll haul us over the line.

You can see he’s got the trust of players by showing common sense and not panicking. Yes, we’re still in there – but hit that level again that we showed last week and accept nothing less from yourself or whoever’s next to you. That will be what he is demanding and expecting.

I SPENT Wednesday night watching another of my old teams, Everton, and I’m still furious. There are two skills we all appreciate in football, attack and defence, and the offside law has been mind-bogglingly skewed to such an extent that we lose one of the great arts in the latter, the ability to hold your line as an individual and unit. A Liverpool player was in an offside position, trying to get back onside.

The pass was made to him and a defender stretched to intercept. He stretched because the attacker was gaining an advantage from being in an offside position. He couldn’t control the ball properly because he was stretching.

Bang, bang, Liverpool score the winner. But the flag didn’t go up and VAR did not intervene because Luis Diaz was not judged to have been in a position to impact James Tarkowski’s ability to play the ball. Complete hogwash.

Of course it had an effect and the officials buckled to the pressure of an Anfield crowd once again. The offside rule might have been difficult to explain to a novice but at least it was black and white. Why have we made it subjective? It is not as if referees and their assistants don’t have enough on their plates and are already getting everything else right.

With this current interpretation we are asking defenders not to play to the whistle. It is baloney. While you're here, we have launched a new WhatsApp group to deliver the latest Stoke news directly to your phone.

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