STOKE TO FOCUS ON NUMBER ONE
Schumacher insists Potters will look to deal with own business on trip to Southampton
STOKE City will only focus on their own game across an afternoon which they hope will seal their Championship status, insists Steven Schumacher.
A win for Stoke at promotionchasing Southampton (3pm) will confirm survival but so would a defeat for either Sheffield Wednesday (at home vs West Bromwich Albion) or Birmingham (away vs Huddersfield). Supporters’ eyes and ears will also be following Blackburn (at home vs Coventry) and Plymouth (away vs Millwall).
Schumacher and his players know the situation but will only focus on what is in front of them.
“The lads all understand what the league table looks like, we all know who everyone is playing and what the situation is elsewhere,” said Schumacher. “But that’s all irrelevant for us, we just have to focus on what we can do.
“That’s been the message all week. We’ve had a training week as good this week as we had last week when we got a really good performance and everyone was at it in the training sessions and we had a clear week to work on things. It’s been the same this week.
“So let’s go and try to do that, try to perform and focus on what we can control.”
Fifty points has long been seen as the target for safety and Stoke hit that mark last weekend with a 3-0 win over Plymouth.
But Schumacher said: “We can’t allow ourselves to relax. If you go to Southampton and you’re not 100 per cent at it, you’re going to get whacked. We can’t allow ourselves to feel as if it’s job done because players are not stupid. They can look at the league table and they hear it on Sky Sports all the time and everyone talking about different permutations if this team beats that team.
“To put it into plain reality, if results go against us then we’re going to need something from the last game of the season. So there’s no time to relax. We have to give 100 per cent to get a result in this next game.”
The Plymouth game was an important result, leapfrogging Schumacher’s old side in the process and producing the best home performance since at least the opening day of the season.
The trick will be now to repeat that – or at least the football side of it.
Schumacher said: “I felt sick after the game last week. I was drained emotionally and everything else.
“My Saturday night consisted of a Chinese takeaway, one bottle of beer and being in bed at 10pm. On Sunday morning I was back thinking about the game, watching it back and starting to get the analysis and debrief done.
“You’re thinking, how did we get to this level and what can we do to make sure we get to that level of performance in the next game?
“It’s doing the right things, try not to change too much, don’t get too high or low, don’t think you’ve cracked it. That can be an issue when you’ve done really well in one game, that you forget what got you the result in the previous one. You have to stay consistent and keep going.”