Alex Neil toasted a potentially pivotal five days in his Stoke City reign as hard-fought back-to-back wins fires confidence into his squad.
Stoke returned from the international break knowing the importance of picking up points, particularly at home, to quell any escalating pressure – and they have managed to get them with key victories over Sunderland and Leeds United.
Neil said: “Everybody was looking and thinking that once we got all our players back, we’ll be fine. That’s easy to say but it’s harder to deliver. But then when you go and deliver against two of the better teams in the division and you get six points off the back of it and you can see how much the lads have put in, it breeds confidence in everything we’re doing and that belief is massive.
“We’ve got another really difficult game on Saturday (away at Middlesbrough) but we should take huge amounts of confidence from these two games.”
The first goal seemed crucial in a tight match against Leeds and the visitors spurned a huge chance to get it when Patrick Bamford sent a 75th-minute penalty high over the crossbar. Instead Stoke went up the other end and took advantage, with Wesley’s header from a Ki-Jana Hoever corner careering off the crossbar and in off Pascal Struijk.
Neil said: “I thought it was more than a battling performance if I’m honest. There was good spells in the first half when we used the ball really well. I thought it was probably a 20 to 25-minute spell when we were really on top and probably had two or three good opportunities but didn’t really take any of them.
