‘WE’VE DONE ENOUGH BUT IT CERTAINLY ISN’T WHAT I AM HERE FOR’
Just surviving not enough insists Schumacher
STEVEN Schumacher says it isn’t enough for himself or Stoke City just to survive in the Championship after three victories to end the season secured their status in the division.
Friends were congratulating Schumacher for reaching the 50-point barrier a fortnight ago but in the end Birmingham have been relegated with that many on the board.
Stoke reached 56 thanks to strong performances and victories in the last month, capped by a final day 4-0 whipping of Bristol City.
Schumacher said: “It shows how strong the league is. Everyone said beforehand that the three teams coming down, the three coming up were all strong teams.
“Argyle are safe, Sheffield Wednesday are safe and Ipswich are in the Premier League so it shows how strong the teams coming up were.
“It’s been a hard season but we’ve just about done enough in the end. We didn’t want it to go to the last day, which it didn’t. We’ve done enough but that isn’t what this club is striving for and it certainly isn’t what I’m here for.”
Goals from Luke Cundle and Tyrese Campbell and a brace from Million Manhoef helped Stoke to a thumping victory over Bristol City to climb up to 17th in the final standings.
The starting XI has stayed the same in the last three matches and featured four loan players plus three more out of contract.
One of those, striker Campbell, is now known to be leaving.
There will be a lot of big decisions to be made right from the start of another busy summer.
Stoke’s form since dropping into the bottom three in late February has seen them collect 21 points in 12 matches, which would easily be play-off standard if they could stretch it over a full campaign.
Schumacher said: “It’s not easy to play like that for 46 games, everyone knows that.
“But that should be the bare minimum, that you work hard and the team has definitely worked hard in the last 12 games I would say.
“They’ve looked like a team and not a gang of individuals and we got the results we needed. That’s positive and something to build on.
“I said last week that it was the first time as a Championship manager that I’d got back-to-back wins.
“We had a team with the lowest budget in the league in Argyle and that’s never easy and then I came into a team which was in a bad situation so it wasn’t easy to get going either.
“But to get three on the spin and finish the way it has is pleasing. I’m delighted with that.”
But Schumacher is aware of the importance of the summer work ahead rather than thinking the last couple of months will be a springboard into next season.
He said: “I don’t know... it was only a few weeks ago that people wanted to get me sacked so I don’t know. That’s what I was getting told.
“It’s a good end to the season. You had said we hadn’t beaten Bristol City here in five games and we hadn’t won here on a final day for too long so we said we wanted to put both of those stats to bed. We’ve done that.
“It’s been a good month or so, we’ve picked up some good results, played well, had one stinking performance at Swansea and apart from that we’ve done all right.”