Mark Robins stands up for Stoke City players as home defeat keeps nerves jangling

Mark Robins is adamant that his Stoke City players gave all they could have done as they slipped to a painful home defeat to Sheffield United. Stoke let in a clumsy goal at a corner to go behind late in the first-half when Sam McCallum’s header went through Viktor Johansson and it was 2-0 late in the second when Alfie Brook finished a swift counter-attack. There were chances for Stoke but they lacked the ruthlessness to take them and now wait to find out if their bid to stay in the Championship will go down to a day of destiny next Saturday at Derby County (12.

30pm). Robins said: "You can only ask for 100 per cent from people and that's what they gave. They gave me everything they had and we fell short with that lack of extra quality that they've got.



"We ended up in good positions but when we put crosses in we hit the first man and it's so frustrating at times. We get good chances and the goalkeeper makes a save when you can lift it over his leg, he's coming out, just check where the goalkeeper is and miss him and put it in the back of the net. I find those things so frustrating.

"But you can only ask for 100 per cent and they've given that. At times we've found it really easy to get through them and we played through them and ran past them and got into good positions but it's that final little bit of quality and calmness. Junho in the first half should have scored after a really good move.

We had Lewis Baker cut inside and nearly drew that one back into the far post. In the second hafl we had Ali Al-Hamadi's chance and a shot for Junho when just a bit of calmness to hit the target was needed. "The way they have played up this season has been different - they've had different strings to their bow - but tonight they played Kieffer Moore and got runners off him.

They played down into the space for the speed of Tyrese Campbell and they ended up with a goal from a corner that we gave them, really poor from our perspective in terms of how the corner came about in the first place. "Bosun is trying to do his job and he turns around too late, the ball hits him on the back of the head and goes across to Sam McCallum to put in the back of the net, which was a really, really poor goal. It's sometimes what happens.

"We didn't let our heads go down, we kept going, kept working, we kept playing as fast as they possibly could do, even if at the back sometimes when we're trying to move it quickly we don't find the right positions early enough. These are the things and frustrations and it can be so much more fluid and it isn't at this moment in time - but, like I've said, it's where we're at. You've got to take the result on the chin and go into the final fixture of the season and look forward to that.

" While you're here, we have launched a new WhatsApp group to deliver the latest Stoke news directly to your phone. Click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in. If for some reason you decide you no longer want to be in our community, you can leave at any time by clicking on the name at the top of your screen and clicking 'Exit Group', simple as that.

.