GAME OF PATIENCE

STOKE CITY MANAGER MARK ROBINS ADMITS HE IS AS KEEN AS THE CLUB'S SUPPORTERS TO SEE MORE GOALS. BUT HE ALSO BELIEVESS IT'S JUST 'LITTLE NUANCES' THAT WILL SUDDENLY CHANGE AND START A GOAL RUSH. STOKE CORRESPONDENT PETE SMITH REPORTS...

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MARK Robins knows he has to keep a handle on his own impatience as Stoke City search for goals and push to see how much progress they can make this season.

Stoke are sixth in the Championship heading into this weekend's fixtures and if that might have surprised pundits' summer predictions, Robins is desperate for more and confident he knows what it will take to get it.

In a half-hour pre-match press conference before he took his squad to Portsmouth, he touched on the current scoring record, progress of summer signings Robert Bozenik and Divin Mubama, and gave an update on Sam Gallagher's hunt for fitness, which has seen Stoke turn to help from specialists to work on the forward's body mechanics.

Five Stoke players have got on the scoresheet in the first 11 games, with Sorba Thomas leading the way on four, Million Manhoef on three and Mubama and Lewis Baker on two.

Bosun Lawal has one. But Stoke haven't scored more than one in a game since winning at Southampton in August and they have paid the price at Millwall, Middlesbrough and QPR for striking a blank.

"I think the first chance the other night, the keeper made a really good save," said Robins. "All you can do is keep creating the chance. All you can do is keep getting the ball in the box, get bodies in the box and then, I think, confidence in life and confidence in football is massive.

"You need that confidence to keep playing, that belief to arrive in those spaces and they can finish.

"They are still young players. All of them are still young players and this, for me, is really interesting because we are really close. Really close.

"It's just nuances, connections, it's like visual connections, understanding, game understanding, timing. It's those bits that are sort of missing from certain elements from certain players. "In game, those are the things that when that clicks, we will click, 100 per cent.