Mark Robins: Stoke City boss unhappy at dropping out of top six

Stoke City boss Mark Robins says it “doesn’t feel good” to have dropped out of the promotion places in the Championship after five defeats in six matches.

That poor run has seen the Potters fall from second spot down to eighth ahead of Swansea City’s visit to the bet365 Stadium on Saturday (12:30 GMT).

Although frustrated, Robins says being only one point off seventh is a reason to remain positive.

“We’re going through a really, really tough patch at the moment,” he told BBC Radio Stoke.

“After the start we’ve made this is a patch where you knew it could come but you hope it didn’t and you can keep picking up the points and we haven’t done that.

“But we’re in a good position to attack that top six – this is the lowest we’ve been this season and it doesn’t feel good.

“It feels much much better when you’re in that top two.”

Robins said the players have been “really disappointed” with recent results but knows they have the ability to turn things around after starting the season by winning eight and losing only three of their first 14 games.

“We have a way of working that is successful, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

“Form can be temporary, but you can get that back because your quality comes back.

“Sometimes we’re really good and sometimes we’re not so good and we’ve got to stop being punished with the errors we’re making.”

Given Stoke have never finished higher than 14th since dropping out of the Premier League in 2018, Robins says some perspective is needed when looking at recent results.

“We nearly got relegated last year and we’ve been in the bottom part of the division since we got relegated [from the Premier League].

“We spoke this summer about finishing higher than 14th would be a success.

“We’ve had a great start and everyone – including me – is saying ‘why not?’ [promotion] and it’s still why not? – we have got so many games to play.

“Hopefully this will be our blip, because performances have been pretty good.”