Walters backs Stoke boss Robins after exit rumours

Stoke have finished 18th and 17th during Mark Robins' 18-month tenure [Getty Images] Stoke City sporting director Jonathan Walters has quashed speculation that manager Mark Robins is set to leave the club. Rumours had circulated that Robins' future at the club was in doubt after a run of one point from their final six games saw them finish 17th in the Championship last season. But Walters has called for stability and insists that the 56-year-old former Coventry City boss will lead the team into the new season. "Rumours will always be there in football, but you know internally what's going on and the process you're going through in terms of recruitment, in terms of staffing, in terms of everything else," he told BBC Radio Stoke. "You can't always come out and answer rumours all the time. Mark's here, Mark's starting the season. "This club over time has gone 'you're wrong, you need to change, change everything'. "I think there comes a point in time where you need to offer stability to a football club, stability to players, stability to staff and say 'actually we're building something, we're trying to do something'." Jonathan Walters was appointed sporting director at Stoke in April 2024 [Getty Images] When he was appointed in January 2025, Robins became the club's seventh permanent manager since relegation from the Premier League in 2018. Unlike many sides to fall out of the top flight, and despite a healthy budget, the Potters have failed to challenge for promotion in any season since the drop, with a highest finish of 14th. Hopes were high last October when they were second after 14 games, but a series of injuries undermined the bright start as the Potters won just three of their final 20 matches. "Everyone's expectations were raised at the start of the year," Walters said. "We were over-performing slightly, but to lose so many players so quickly, within a few weeks, and not through muscle injuries, that was the biggest blow. We had two shoulders in a week, a knee, an ankle, operations one after another. "People were just settling in, we were just getting going. It's going to hurt you and we just didn't recover from that." Yet even with all that injury disruption during the middle of the campaign, Walters stressed the end to the campaign remained below par and has made ambitions plain. "Let's make no bones about it, you can talk about injuries and other things and the reasons why you struggle at certain times, [but] we didn't finish the season good enough," he said. "We knew things weren't good enough at certain times and the expectations of the football club are not to finish 13th. "The expectations of the football club this year, [are] we've got to be up around the play-offs, we've got to be. "With the squad we're building, with what we're able to bring in, we've got to be there. That's the expectation that's got to be set." Latest Stoke City news, analysis and fan views