Reaction from Mark Robins as a patched-up Stoke City win 1-0 at Hull in the Championship
18:25, 01 Jan 2026Updated 18:28, 01 Jan 2026
Robert Bozenik scored the opener at Hull City as Lewie Coyle looks on(Image: Mark Cosgrove/News Images)
Viktor Johansson is expected to need surgery on a shoulder injury while Robert Bozenik is in hospital to have his assessed, Mark Robins has confirmed.
Johansson missed the first league game of his Stoke career after landing awkwardly during a match against Sheffield United on Monday. Tommy Simkin was recalled from a loan at Leyton Orient and starred in a superb 1-0 win at Hull, secured thanks to Bozenik’s first goal in England.
Bozenik was putting in probably his best performance for the club when he hit the deck with a dislocated shoulder early in the second half.
Robins said: “It’s not looking favourable (for Johansson). It looks like it’s probably going to need surgery so that’s going to be a while.
“He’s a top bloke as well as a top goalkeeper. That news really hit everybody for six. We’ve just got to deal with it the best we can and support him to come back as soon as possible. There is a variance, a quite marked difference between what the earliest and what the latest might be so we’re praying for the earlier, obviously.”
He added: “We’ve waited for Robert to score, he gets his goal and then his shoulder dislocates. That is not great news at all. He was in some discomfort, some distress when he came off past me. He’s in hospital so we’ll see what the outcome of that is.
“He looked like a proper striker today. He’s been working towards that and he looked like he was going to get a goal and he did. There were some good moves. On a difficult pitch we played some really good football. We were able to control it and had it just been a little bit calmer we would have controlled the game even more. It was a game that was there for us to win and thankfully we did. It wasn’t the way I expected or wanted it to be and we could have had a bit more quality and calmness in possession but I’m delighted.”
Simkin, aged 21, had to make a smart close range save in his second Stoke first team start to seal an invaluable clean sheet.
Robins said: “Tommy coming in showed a level of maturity and quality that we needed. It’s a good start for him and the start of his career with us. Hopefully he will build into a really, really good goalkeeper for us.
“The defenders were brilliant in front of him, really good. That’s what we were asking for, we’ve got to try to help each other. We did that. When he had the ball he showed a real level of maturity and game understanding. I was really pleased.
“We have to take into account the context and this is the third game in a spell when the intensity isn’t necessarily there. The games are normally faster than that, things happen quicker, the Sheffield United game was quicker, and they will be again once people have a chance to recover – which won’t be before Sunday (a trip to Norwich) but we’ve got to go again.”
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