As he requires his players to stand up so they can be counted, Mark Robins felt pity for Stoke City’s travelling supporters.

Although Robins has commended his team’s work ethic and dedication since taking over on New Year’s Day, he wants to see more ruthlessness or intent, which was obvious in Wednesday night’s 2-0 loss to Bristol City.

“I don’t believe they haven’t given it their all tonight,” he stated. All that has been badly lacking is this. We have more possession, but you must have a purpose. We started to gain some momentum and had the opportunity to harm them, but we were unable to do so in the last third because you had to flee in order to do it.

The game must be stretched. When you’re in really excellent positions, you can pass backwards, but we didn’t do that, and the last ball was either over hit, under hit, or negative. It’s disappointing that we were unable to take advantage of those movements.

When it comes right down to it, there are two times during the game when we have turned off. They will claim that they made a fantastic pass behind our full-back, but this is a dreadful example of poor positioning together with a lack of awareness and communication. Really, it is shameful to get behind our back line like that.

After they scored the second goal from a set play, we switched off both the left and right sides once more, and without giving them a chance, we are now under 2-0. There hasn’t been much activity for their goalie.

Stoke has the opportunity to respond swiftly to this performance, despite having the support of almost 800 supporters in the West Country. On Saturday, Robins will try to get his first home victory when they host Swansea at the bet365 Stadium.

“That is the allure of football,” he remarked. It is possible that you will have a bad day and everyone will be disappointed. I feel bad for the supporters. Although this isn’t a critique of the young players I have, we must take a position and be taken seriously in that regard. They pay hard-earned money, and your first instinct is to fight and make sure you provide a good account for yourself, your town, and your city. That ought to be a

“We tried to be brave tonight, to take the ball, play, pass, and be brave on the ball, but we didn’t pull it off. It puts some pressure on some areas, and you have to be strong to be counted.” You must defend when you must, and occasionally you must also love defending.