Stoke City

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Stoke City manager Mark Robins told BBC Radio Stoke: "We started off not great because the conditions were really difficult.

"I said before we had to be patient. Michael O'Neill was going to come and make sure Blackburn push every button they possibly can to make sure we frustrate the crowd because we don't move the ball enough.

"We want to try and be brave. There are positional things that happen that don't feel comfortable, but you have to be uncomfortable at times.

"First half, we didn't do enough, so we gave them some impetus. Their goal, we didn't get the press right at all, you've got to win your duels. Those are the non-negotiables.

"What I was pleased about was we kept playing and we got the equaliser. I thought we were well worthy of it and were the only team trying to win it."

Stoke City's players need to learn how to accept criticism if they are to be successful, according to head coach Mark Robins.

The Potters were fourth in the Championship table at the start of December, just three points off the automatic promotion places, but they have won only six of their subsequent 23 games to slip to 13th place, 12 points adrift of the top six.

"It's been a season of great promise to start with and then real disappointment," Robins told BBC Radio Stoke.

"Everybody talks about that position we're in, being mid-table obscurity, and no-one wants that. The emotions in mid-table are totally different, so we need to be at the top end of the division.

"I don't want to be at the bottom end of the division and we're not, but that's scant consolation for the promise the season showed at the start. So the disappointment is there and it's tangible for everybody."

Stoke were beaten 2-0 at Derby County on Monday, and Robins is hoping his players can react the right way to the criticism which followed that performance when they host Blackburn Rovers on Saturday (15:00 BST).

"We speak about ego, where if you get criticism nowadays it's difficult for people to take on board, but like I said at the end of the game, 'Suck it up'. Understand what is going on, understand what your part of the bargain is, and deliver. That's our job.

"It gives me a lot of information of how people cope in certain situations. When everything is going great everyone is alright, but people react in different ways under pressure, and it's something people need to learn to deal with - we've got five games left and I want to win all five of them."

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The EFL has announced the fixtures for the 2026-27 season will be published at midday on Thursday, 25 June.

The first-round draws for the Carabao Cup and the Vertu Trophy will be made on the same day.

The new season will kick off on the weekend of August 7-9 with the first round of the Carabao Cup, and the opening fixtures in the Championship, League One and League Two will follow a week later on 14-16 August.

The first round of the Vertu Trophy will be played in the week commencing 21 September.

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Blackburn Rovers will look to pull further clear of the Championship relegation places when the visit Stoke City on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 15:00 BST).

Michael O'Neill's side were just one point above the drop zone after a 1-0 defeat to relegation rivals Oxford on 11 March but are unbeaten in the four games since (W2 D2) and are now six points ahead of Leicester in 22nd.

The Potters - who are 12 points behind the play-off spots and 13 clear of the drop - are on course for a mid-table finish.

• None of Stoke's previous 15 home league games against Blackburn have finished level, with the Potters winning nine and losing six.

• Blackburn have alternated between victory (3) and defeat (3) in their past six away league games against Stoke, losing 1-0 in this exact fixture last season.

• Stoke have won their past two home league games – the Potters haven't won three on the bounce at home since April/August 2024, while in the same season they last did so in August/September 2021 under current Blackburn boss Michael O'Neill.

• Blackburn Rovers have kept a clean sheet in their previous three league games, last going four without conceding in November/December 2024 (a run of five).

• Stoke City's Sorba Thomas is the only player with both 10 goals and 10 assists in the Championship this season. The last player to achieve that in a league season (excl. play-offs) under manager Mark Robins was current Arsenal striker Viktor Gyökeres in 2022-23 at Coventry (21 goals, 10 assists).

Mark Elliott
BBC Radio Stoke’s Stoke City commentator

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Stoke were outmuscled at Derby in a way that highlighted the gap in physicality between the Potters and most of the teams chasing promotion.

Not every team in the Championship needs to be as direct as Derby but no team can afford to be as lightweight and lacking in power and athleticism as Stoke were.

It's not the first time over the past two seasons that Stoke have been bullied to defeat.

They put out a young team, particularly defensively and couldn't impose themselves physically at either end of the pitch.

After the game, the manager Mark Robins questioned his team's "fight", which suggests that he's ready to move on from some players this summer.

When they turn to the transfer market in a few weeks, adding power and physicality - particularly to the spine of the team - has to be a priority.

Stoke City manager Mark Robins spoke BBC Radio Stoke after Monday's 2-0 defeat at Derby County.

"How did I see the game? It was a nothing first half, but they had better chances than us," he said.

"On Good Friday it was a really good win. Then coming into this one as we come to the end of the season, I'm looking for more.

"And really, I'm left disappointed because we've certainly not done enough with the ball, but we have looked passive, which isn't us – it shouldn't be us and can't be us. And we left ourselves open to that defeat, and that is a concern.

"After a game where we've had to work hard, even against a Sheffield Wednesday side that has been struggling, we win the game and we have to bounce onto the next one, and we don't or can't do that.

"It is really difficult to win any game of football in any division, and the Championship is brutal, but you certainly have to match the opposition in terms of fight, and we haven't got that.

"We just haven't got that at this stage and the players who have got that just looked like they weren't at the level of Derby's players."

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Stoke manager Mark Robins said his side lacked fluidity in attack and admitted it was a laborious performance in the 2-0 over Sheffield Wednesday.

Goals from Jesurun Rak-Sakyi and Lamine Cisse secured victory at the Bet365 Stadium.

But Robins wasn't entirely satisfied with the manner of the result.

"We were nowhere near fluid throughout the game," Robins told BBC Radio Stoke.

"We were at times, but we looked laboured in movement and passing. We created good openings and should have had more chances on goal if we'd had been more awake.

"We got the game done, a clean sheet and 54 points, more than the entirety of last season. You talk about incremental improvement, that is there for everyone to see."

Robins added that expectation was high because Wednesday have already been relegated, and pointed out his squad has been stretched recently.

"It was hard. You're on a hiding to nothing because people expect you to win and score a avalanche of goals. That hasn't happened.

"They've got lots of good players. They've lost some and gained some. Sheffield Wednesday are young and they've been through the mill in the past few seasons.

"We've had eight players to work with whilst others are injured, coming back or on international duty. Logistically it is tough; to get the game won like that was pleasing."

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Championship clubs spent just over £69.5m on agents fees over the past 12 months according to figures released by the Football Association,, external an increase of £6m on the previous year.

The figures cover the period from February 2025 with Ipswich Town the top spenders, paying £11.7m having spent the first three months of the accounting period in the Premier League.

Southampton (£8.3m) and Leicester (£5.8m), who were relegated alongside Ipswich are the second and third-highest payers on the list.

Troubled Sheffield Wednesday were the most frugal when dealing with agents, spending £534,559.

Wrexham come in sixth on the list with an outlay of £3.6m while current Championship leaders Coventry spent just short of £1.5m.

Championship agents' fee spending, external

• Ipswich - £11,738,920

• Southampton - £8,381,358

• Leicester City - £5,866,587

• Sheffield United - £5,005,498

• Norwich - £4,020,206

• Wrexham - £3,660,584

• Swansea - £3,088,645

• Middlesbrough - £2,900,314

• Bristol City - £2,774,990

• Hull City - £2,450,431

• Stoke City - £2,088,886

• Birmingham City - £1,996,502

• Millwall - £1,982,348

• Preston North End - £1,831,233

• QPR - £1,829,036

• Watford - £1,612,833

• Coventry - £1,497,990

• Derby - £1,409,507

• West Brom - £1,346,030

• Oxford - £1,235,536

• Charlton - £904,698

• Portsmouth - £831,818

• Blackburn - £676,980

• Sheffield Wednesday - £534,559

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Stoke City striker Sorba Thomas scored his second senior international goal for Wales in a 1-1 home draw with Northern Ireland in a friendly on Tuesday night.

The 27-year-old poked home from close range to equalise less than a minute into the second half to cancel out Jamie Donley's 22nd-minute opener for the visitors.

Both nations were still reeling from their World Cup play-off semi-final defeats last Thursday against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy respectively, resulting in a relatively lacklustre encounter at Cardiff City Stadium.

Thomas has 25 international caps and his only previous goal for Wales came in World Cup qualifying in June 2025 in a 4-3 defeat by Belgium in Brussels.

He will now return to the Potters before they host already-relegated Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship on Saturday (15:00 BST).

Stoke City will hope to please fans once again with prolific scoring on home soil as they host relegated side Sheffield Wednesday on Friday (15:00 BST).

The Potters have scored 10 goals across their past four league matches at the bet365 Stadium, in which they were undefeated (W2 D2).

But Wednesday are still pushing to try and find just their second win of the season in hopes of ending their Championship campaign on a brighter note.

• Stoke have won their last two league games against Sheffield Wednesday, and are looking to complete the league double over them for the first time since 1969-70.

• Sheffield Wednesday have lost their last two league games against Stoke, as many as they had in their previous 13 (W5 D6).

• Having won their first two league games of 2026 (vs Hull and Norwich), Stoke have now won just two of their last 13 in the Championship (D5 L6).

• Sheffield Wednesday are winless in their last 33 league games (D8 L25). It's the longest single season run of any side in English league history, while only Derby County (Sep 2007-Aug 2008) and Macclesfield Town (Jan 2012-Oct 2018) have had longer winless runs in the top four tiers (both 36).

• Sheffield Wednesday have used more different players than any other side in the Championship this season (39). Despite this, only Derby (73) and Middlesbrough (77) have made fewer starting XI changes than the Owls (80).

Stoke City striker Sam Gallagher says his goal during their 3-1 win over Watford helped him feel "inclusion in the team" again after spending months on the sidelines.

The 30-year-old has struggled with injuries this season, missing 11 league games with a hamstring problem before making his return against the Hornets.

He also missed the first 16 games of the Championship campaign.

"That's one of the biggest things when you are injured," Gallagher told BBC Radio Stoke.

"When you are in the gym, you're looking through the glass at the boys outside working hard and you're thinking: 'I'm not helping the team'.

"So to score the goal and contribute like that was massive for me."

Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds

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Mark Elliott
BBC Radio Stoke’s Stoke City commentator

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This was a game that looked there for the taking, particularly after Sorba Thomas opened the scoring with a brilliantly taken 10th goal of the season.

Then it all fell apart. Preston were sharper, stronger and more aggressive despite their lack of quality, something that made this 3-1 defeat even more frustrating.

Preston had won one in 13 before this but Stoke allowed them back into the game quickly despite the pressure building from the crowd.

After the game, manager Mark Robins called his team's character into question and said they'd let Stoke's 3,000 vocal travelling fans down and it was hard to disagree with his sentiments.

He wasn't frustrated, he said he was "angry".

On a poor pitch, Preston outmuscled the Potters and capitalised on errors, scoring their equaliser, for example, on a breakaway from a Stoke throw in on the edge of the home side's box.

Stoke will finish somewhere in the mid-table pack and attention will turn to next season sooner rather than later.

Some of the players involved at Deepdale may need to rebuild some trust with their manager and the fans if they're to stick around in the medium to long term.

This was a chastening night in Lancashire.

Stoke manager Mark Robins accused his players of letting down their 3,000 travelling fans in their 3-1 loss to Preston at Deepdale.

Preston were on a miserable run and Robins felt "they were there for the taking" when Stoke took the lead after four minutes through Sorba Thomas.

But Stoke failed to press home their advantage, allowing Preston to come back and win for the first time in eight Championship games.

Robins told BBC Radio Stoke: "We let the supporters down and we had 3,000 supporters here tonight, we've really let them down. That's miles away from where I expect the performance to be.

"We didn't start particularly well, you know, inexplicable. We certainly didn't win enough duels in the first half.

"But we got the first breakaway and we score from it, and they're on the back foot. They've been on the back foot for some weeks now and they looked like that. They were there for the taking and whatever happened in this game, the pitch, whatever, I have no clue.

"There were too many players with off days and I think we've let everybody down. We've not competed well enough in the game and that's inexplicable to me. It's just unacceptable. That isn't a performance that's associated with our team."