Mark Robins’ verdict as Stoke City start pre-season with ‘good work out’ against Shrewsbury Town
Stoke City manager Mark Robins talks through the opening few days of pre-season and a 1-0 defeat to Shrewsbury Town in the first friendly
Mark Robins will be looking for more as Stoke City head into the next phase of pre-season.
Stoke kicked off their friendly programme with a 1-0 defeat behind closed doors against Shrewsbury Town, when Robins named a different XI in each half and was without nine senior players, including new signings and internationals whose starts have been delayed, as well as injuries.
The squad will fly out to Cadiz on Friday for a six-day training camp and have a couple more behind-closed-doors fixtures – one in Spain and one in England – before their first public outing of the summer at Crewe Alexandra later this month.
Robins has been pleased with how most players reported back for what is his first pre-season as manager and understands the importance of getting the balance right in terms of pushing them hard without risking any muscle problems.
And he wants to see the work they are doing on the training pitches translate into their performances more as the countdown picks up towards the start of the Championship season, at home against Derby County on August 9.
He said: “The first few days were testing days as the fitness guys to get a benchmark about where they were and how their fitness stood, which give you an indication of what you can do and how difficult you can start with pre-season. They’ve come back in decent nick, they’re able to do quite a lot of the work really, really well to a really high standard.
“Really we’ve got to try to push and push and you’re right on the edge of it in pre-season – but we’ve got to ensure that everyone gets through pre-season as much as we possibly can in terms of soft tissue stuff. When you play the games you’ve obviously got different elements that can open you up to different things but hopefully we can come through unscathed and start with as near as we can full complement.
“We’ve had a game today and there have been nine players missing from that, including the three new signings and the injured boys – Sam Gallagher and Ben Gibson as well as (Bae) Junho with his shoulder. Those six boys didn’t take part and Viktor (Johansson) has only come back in this week and Million Manhoef is not back in yet until he comes back in this weekend.
“It was a good work out, because they always are, against a Shrewsbury team that is going to try to bounce back to League One at the first attempt this season after dropping out last year.
“Really we’ve got to try to push and push and you’re right on the edge of it in pre-season – but we’ve got to ensure that everyone gets through pre-season as much as we possibly can in terms of soft tissue stuff. When you play the games you’ve obviously got different elements that can open you up to different things but hopefully we can come through unscathed and start with as near as we can full complement.
“We’ve had a game today and there have been nine players missing from that, including the three new signings and the injured boys – Sam Gallagher and Ben Gibson as well as (Bae) Junho with his shoulder. Those six boys didn’t take part and Viktor (Johansson) has only come back in this week and Million Manhoef is not back in yet until he comes back in this weekend.
“It was a good work out, because they always are, against a Shrewsbury team that is going to try to bounce back to League One at the first attempt this season after dropping out last year.
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