City warning as Potters look to finish on a high
STOKE City’s management are relieved that they have another opportunity to give their fans something to cheer when they take on Coventry City on Saturday.
The Potters’ travelling faithful of just shy of 1,000 endured a miserable afternoon at Middlesbrough at the weekend in the club’s last away match of a disappointing season, losing 3-1 at the Riverside Stadium.
All efforts have now switched to turning over the Sky Blues at the Bet365 Stadium where Michael O’neill’s men have won ten, lost eight and drawn four games so far this term. Stoke, who sit two places and two points below Coventry in the Championship table, know they can finish no higher than 10th and still as low as 16th with one game left to play.
Mark Robins’ men, meanwhile, can also finish no higher than 10th and as low as 16th – where they finished last season, albeit currently eight points better off than last season’s final tally.
Coventry beat the Potters 1-0 at the CBS Arena in January, and earned a brilliant 3-2 win at the Bet365 Stadium at the back end of last season.
Stoke’s assistant manager Dean Holden had sympathy for those supporters who made the trip north to face Boro, saying: “That’s the disappointing thing again. It’s been a disappointing season overall and we have to make sure we finish on a high in terms of a positive performance this week. I’m glad that’s not our last game of the season, I have to say.”
He added: “It’s a performance in that first half we have to put right quickly. We’ll get back to training and try to finish with a positive performance and try to finish as high as we can up the league and give our supporters something.”
Stoke had started the game in control of possession against Boro but couldn’t make it count, were 2-0 down by half-time and three behind in the 72nd minute. Matt Crooks scored twice to go with a Lewis Baker own goal before Nick Powell pulled one back in secondhalf injury time.
Holden said: “We started all right in terms of possession of the ball but we didn’t really run in behind and didn’t really create the moments we thought we could hurt them with. Having watched them in previous weeks we didn’t stretch and hurt them and get behind in key areas around the box. We had a decent amount possession.”
Ben Wilmot (calf) and Josh Maja (knee) will be assessed to see if they can feature against Coventry.
I’m glad that’s not our last game of the season. We’ll get back to training and try to finish with a positive performance.
Dean Holden