New Stoke City boss Mark Robins has indicated that the summer transfer window could be a bigger one than the January window.
The 55-year-old is the Potters third permanent manager of the season, following on from Steven Schumacher and Narcis Pelach. His appointment was announced on New Year’s Day, giving Robins a swift return to management following his shock departure from Coventry City in November.
Stoke have been languishing dangerously close to the relegation places in the Championship once again this season. Interim boss Ryan Shawcross enjoyed an excellent two games in charge prior to Robins’ arrival, beating Sunderland on December 29th before a respectable 0-0 draw with title challengers Burnley on New Year’s Day.
The new head coach will take the reins for the first time tomorrow afternoon when he leads his team out against bottom of the table Plymouth Argyle.
Robins Admits January Is A Tough Window
The January transfer window represents the last opportunity to make additions to the squad for the remainder of the campaign, although it is often thought to be a tough time to do business. Robins concurs with this thought, claiming the summer transfer window will be a big one for Stoke. Speaking in his first press conference, via Stoke-On-Trent Live, the former Huddersfield Town boss said:
“It’s notoriously tough, January. Really, really tough to operate in any way. We’ll make sure, again, everything is aligned, and we don’t make any mistakes where we can damage the next window that opens, which is a really big window for us in the summer.
“But we’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough to be able to be really competitive this time around.
“We’ve got to keep the players moving in that forward direction and trying to ensure that the energy is there to be able to do that.
“There are injuries to key players in key positions so there’s a slight imbalance to things. There’s some young players there, it’s a youngish squad anyway. But it looks exciting.
“We’ve just got to make sure we keep it moving in that direction.”
Writer’s View
Robins has hinted that Stoke will do some business this month, but it’s clear he already has one eye on the summer. He needs to ensure Championship survival first though, although Ryan Shawcross has given him an excellent platform to achieve just that with the four point haul he collected in the last two games.
The new boss will be confident of adding to that haul tomorrow against a team that are yet to win away from home, but he then must look at refreshing his squad. One or two tweaks should see them be competitive for the remainder of the season before the hard work really begins in the summer.
