Tom Ince urges Stoke to ‘man up’ and show hunger after slow start to the season
Tom Ince has accused Stoke City of lacking hunger, shirking responsibility and being defensively „all over the place“ following their defeat to Wigan Athletic on Wednesday.
Gary Rowett’s side were defeated 3-0 on a humbling night at the Bet365 Stadium and sit 22nd in the Championship table with two points from four games.
It was a very disappointing start to the season for the Potters, who were viewed as one of the favourites for the Championship after adding players like Ince, Benik Afobe, James McClean, Ashley Williams and Cuco Martina over the summer.
Ince may be new to the squad following his £12m move from Huddersfield Town in July but he took it upon himself to issue a rallying cry to his team-mates after their latest setback.
„We have to man up and, in effect, grow some balls and make sure now that we put ourselves on the line and actually show some hunger to put things right,“ Ince said.
„Because if we don’t, teams will come here and do what Wigan did. We have to realise teams are going to come here and see Stoke City as a scalp.
„We have to show our quality – we have it in abundance – but at the minute we are not showing it.
„We are not taking risks, we are not taking responsibility, we are hiding when things are going wrong and we can’t capitulate like we do.
„We have to make sure we stay in games. I think that’s the biggest thing. We aren’t going to be able to play free-flowing and pass teams off the park.
„We have to make this place a horrible place to come and that means by being aggressive, being hard to beat, because we’ve got talent to score goals and at the minute we are not doing either.
„We are not creating many chances to score, defensively we are all over the place and we have to do better.“
Northern Ireland international Will Grigg scored twice for Wigan, while Gavin Massey added another and Williams was sent off late on to leave to compound a miserable night for Stoke.
Ince questioned Stoke’s fitness and accused them of complacency after dropping down from the Premier League.
Ince continued: „You can’t come into the Championship saying, ‘we are Stoke City and we have been in the Premier League for so long and now we are in the Championship and can just turn up and roll teams over’ because you’ve seen a [Wigan] side that was more hungry, more aggressive and look like they could run further than us.
„If we are not even able to get our passing game going, then at least be aggressive, at least put tackles in, at least make it hard for teams.
„At the minute teams are able to get to our box far too easily. We have to look at that and we have to look at making changes and trying to do better at both ends of the pitch because you can’t let this losing streak continue.“
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