Mark Robins heaped praise on his goalscorers after Stoke put a three-game losing run behind them with a 2-1 win against Swansea.
Ben Pearson scored an eye-catching opener in the first half and Sorba Thomas hit the second on the hour mark for Stoke, who managed to see out the win after Zan Vipotnik halved the deficit late on.
And Robins, who made six changes to his starting line-up, was delighted to get back to winning ways.
“We’ve been playing pretty well but it can have an impact on confidence,” he said. “It’s part of the game, it’s part of the Championship and we’ve played some really good teams, three away from home. It’s frustrating when you’re not winning but I think we’ve been pretty good.
“The six changes I wasn’t too worried about because they’ve all played games, they weren’t coming in from the cold.
“We’re lucky we’ve got some really good, talented players, and I’m hoping they start to really believe in themselves as much as everybody else in the building.
“The two goals were absolutely outstanding. I was glad Pearo shot because normally he’ll take it out of his feet and play it wide or whatever. He has doubts about himself but it’s a great effort, a really clean strike and a brilliant finish.
“Sorba is unbelievable because he keeps going. He’s not had a breather, I can’t get him one. He’s been a goal threat in most games and he keeps churning it out because he’s been so good for us and we’d miss him greatly if he were to come out of the team.”
For Swansea boss Vitor Matos, there was disappointment not to have grabbed some reward, particularly after Vipotnik’s strike gave them hope. Still just a few weeks into the job, he insists that positive changes will come in time.
“I’m disappointed not to get something from the game,” he said. “In the second half, we came back into it. Of course we wanted to take something out of the game. When you come to Stoke, you need to grab the game from the beginning.
“We had opportunities, but when we were high up the pitch, we wanted to be there for more time, and then we suffered.
“Then, in the second half we suffered when we were trying to change a few things. We tried to get back in the game, we scored to make it 2-1 and then had another chance but, of course, we didn’t get the result we wanted.
“We need to keep improving, and we need to keep going. We need to start to be a team that really wants to compete against everyone in every place we go. For that, we need to do a lot of things right. We’ve a few other things we need to keep improving, but the Championship is about points and about getting the results, and that’s what we need to get as well.
“How we do it? With training, focus and concentration in the next game, that’s what we need to do from now on.”
