Stoke City manager Mark Robins felt the quality of Jaden Philogene’s second-minute finish was the difference between the sides having been pleased with what he believed was a brave display from his side overall.

Philogene, who was on loan with the Potters in the second half of the 2021/22 campaign, smashed a brilliant seventh goal of the season only one minute and 43 seconds after the game had got under way.

Town boss Kieran McKenna had said he had enjoyed what he felt was a “really, really good game” and Robins concurred.

“I agree with him,” he said. “From our perspective, we were brave, we took part in a game against a team that got relegated from the Premier League last year and has lost some good players, made a lot of money, but reinvested it really well.

“And the club, you can see, this [the press conference room] is new, the dressing rooms are new. It looks like a really improved club.

“Kieran coaches them really well. There are a lot of similarities between their patterns and ours, which was interesting for us to see.

“I think that the difference was the quality of the finish from Philogene after minute two. That was something that I was frustrated with because I thought we were well in the game, I thought we created some really good moments for ourselves and we let ourselves down with either a final pass or a final decision.

“Think back to [Bae] Jun-ho’s chance where he’s taken a touch, there’s no time to take a touch, you’ve got to hit it first time and find the corner.

“There were two chances for Sorba [Thomas] in the first half, clear. We’ve had Gally [Sam Gallagher] in the second half, we’ve had chances, for me, for us to go and make it exciting.

“To go and make it a real game you have to have the care on a pass, the timing of a pass has got to be better, and we got that wrong.

“Brave on the ball, got from goalkeeper to final third really decent a lot of time, got our press wrong a couple of times but maybe once was in the second minute and they ended up going and scoring.

“But he’s got a lot to do. From even when you break that press, he’s still got a lot to do to go and score.

“But I thought we were really good and the frustration for me is that we haven’t got that 20-goal-a-season striker at the moment.

“And by the way, this is not criticism of Divin [Mubama] because I thought Divin was a lot, lot better tonight, I thought his movement was better, I thought him taking part in it was better. There are still things he needs to learn, but that’s where we’re at.”

The defeat was Stoke’s fifth in six game and their third in a row, having been beaten 4-0 at Sheffield United on Saturday.

“Difficult for me to talk about all the positivity that was around before this last run of games, but this is the Championship and that’s where we’re at,” Robins continued.

“This was a test for me to see where we are and to see how we could respond from a really disappointing afternoon on Saturday.

“I thought we responded really well, I thought we were pretty good and can count ourselves a bit unfortunate not to get something from the game, which is the Championship.”

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