Mark Robins hopes Lamine Cisse’s brilliant match-winner against Coventry will be a launchpad to become “the player he will be, quicker”.
Cisse, aged 22, probably hasn’t had the chances he might have dreamed since joining Stoke from Bastia, France, in the summer, and he had talks with Robins recently about what he needed to do to get more action.
This FA Cup third-round tie at the bet365 Stadium was his third start in a row and he scored the only goal with a beauty from 30 yards in the 88th minute.
Robins said: “He’s been good because he’s waited for an opportunity. He will have felt a little hard done by. It does work both ways, you have to show something to gain something.
“I had a conversation with him a few weeks ago and from that point I’ve given him more game time and he has responded pretty well.
“I know he’s good enough, more than good enough, and I’m delighted with it and certainly his performances over the last few weeks culminating in that today.
“That today, for him and for us, was big. It should give him a lot of confidence to push on and become the player he will be for us, quicker.”
Stoke created but didn’t take four big chances in the first half and then Coventry hit the post twice in the second before Cisse’s moment of magic.
Robins said: “It was a good performance. We could have been goals up in the first half. I thought we had four brilliant opportunities to score, certainly two should have been taken. You’re obviously thinking they’ll get a sniffter and they almost did in the second half, hit the post twice and had a bit more of the ball.
“But I thought we were good where we needed to be, defended pretty well and looked a threat and execution of the last pass could have been a little bit better. It looked like the game was going to drift into extra-time until that moment of quality.
“What I was pleased about was that he has taken it on. He showed the confidence to take it on. He’s got the ability to do that and what pleased me was that he tried it and executed it. As soon as it left his boot you knew it was sailing over the goalkeeper’s head.
“You saw the outpouring of emotion from him and that was good to see because he gets that confidence from that. A brilliant moment for him and fantastic for us to advance into the fourth round for a second consecutive season.”
