JUST IN: Stoke City supporters have been making their feelings known after a mid-week defeat at home against Middlesbrough

Stoke City supporters have been making their feelings known after a mid-week defeat at home against Middlesbrough

Stoke City supporters have been in an unforgiving mood after watching their team fall to a 3-1 home defeat to Middlesbrough.

Stoke have 12 games left in another poor season in the Championship, marooned in 20th and five points above the relegation places with the first priority just to stay in the division.

Mark Robins is the third manager of the campaign and, although this was his first defeat at the bet365 Stadium in the league, he knows there is restlessness in the stands on the back of what has happened over the last few years – and that this performance was nowhere near the standard needed.

Stoke quickly have to move on to another home game against Watford on Saturday (3pm) but fans have been getting in touch via social media to give their verdicts on what they saw on Tuesday night. What do you think? Join in the debate in the comments section.

Carole Canty: Robins has an impossible job.

Steve Drakeford: With a bit, or a lot, of luck, three teams will be worse than us. It’s the only thing that will save us.

Philip Kelsall: I think we should be playing two holding midfielder players, preferably Thompson and Pearson. Unfortunately they haven’t been available much this season. We need to stop the goals we inevitably concede in every game. It’s a negative approach I admit, but in our situation a necessary one. Our defence doesn’t seem able to concentrate for a full game. You can expect that from Phillips, he’s only 19, but the others have been playing long enough now. None of our defence is good enough for the top half of this league, so we to stifle sides in midfield.

Barry Sherratt: I like Robins’ honesty but this team needs a rebuild regardless of which league we are in next season. Hopefully with five loans going and seven or eight out of contract he will have room to work.

Peter Rofe: The players need to take a cold hard look at themselves. Was that really their best? If not they need to realise that this club and its fans want them to do their best EVERY game. When they pull on that shirt they represent us. It’s not about picking up a pay packet, it’s about pride and passion for the game and the club. Being the best. All that we ask of them is to fight for our club, for our area and importantly for themselves. It’s a tough run in to the end of the season and we need points. We simply cannot leave it until the last few games as the pressure will be huge. Keep it simple, get it into the opponents half quickly and play from there. Play for each other, and play for us and “We’ll be with you every step of the way..”

Lee Wagstaff: You can’t pick that midfield three and expect to get anything other than a good hiding. Robins is forced to work with a bunch of cowards, but he’s not doing himself any favours either.

Gary O’Sullivan: Any successful team is built on a great defence then the spine. It doesn’t matter how many football experts we employ, they all seem to overlook that. I think I read that we have only paid money for three centre-backs since we got relegated, the rest have been frees or loans. It’s shocking especially given the amount of money we have wasted elsewhere on the pitch. If you don’t concede, you always have a chance of getting points.

Martyn Timmis: For some reason we have a team that is unable to mark players. For their first goal we had six players around the centre circle in their half, nothing in the flanks and one pass took them all out of the game. Players get the ball in defence and mess about. I seem to remember under Pulis it was if it’s in their half they don’t score (unless you’re Baker/Adam). Nathan Lowe is not ready for this league yet, he needs to put on a stone and muscle. We don’t have any players that can hold a ball up in attack that don’t get bullied off the ball (possible exception is Gallagher, if he’s fully fit). Count how many we saw walking back after we lost a ball (Junho exception).

I may well be over critical here in some peoples eyes, but it happens week in ,week out! We have a right back on the bench but play a centre-back there when those that are at centre-back are dire (except Phillips). We seem to have a major problem in backroom staff when it comes to conditioning and fitness, we continue to have a constant flow of injuries for the last three years that other clubs don’t seem to suffer from,