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Ben Wilmot this week became the first Stoke City player in almost five fairly turbulent years to make 200 appearances for the club. He has played under five managers, broken his back, been captain, player of the year, scored the goal of the season, been used at right-back, alongside 116 different teammates and 20 different centre-halves.
But Robins clearly likes Wilmot, now aged 26, as a player and a character. The defender signed a new three-year contract last month, with the option of a further year, having joined from Watford in the summer of 2021 for a fee believed to be £1.5m. He has been an ever-present this season and scored what proved to be the winning goal at Bolton last weekend.
The manager thinks he can get better too – and part of that will come down to Wilmot really believing that as well.
“You look at Ben’s performances in general and he’s a Steady Eddie,” said Robins. “He’s talented and someone who has actually enjoyed being here and loves being here. In terms of can he improve? I think so. I think he can. That’s in Ben’s head as well.
“I think Ben’s head sometimes limits him. His true capability is unknown really because sometimes he just limits himself. Physically he is really good, he is technically really good. He sees the game in a really good way. He is aggressive in lots of moments – but there is improvement there.
“There is a lot to like about Ben and he’s a good person to have around the club too.”
It must say a lot about Stoke that Joe Allen (221) is the only other player to pass the 200-game mark over the last seven years. The Wales midfielder got there in January 2022, his final half-season at the club. Erik Pieters (206) just about tipped over a double century too following relegation in 2018.
Yet there was a time about a decade ago when Stoke had one of the most stable squads in Europe’s top five leagues. Ryan Shawcross, Glenn Whelan, Jon Walters and Peter Crouch were all mainstays, like Rory Delap and Ricardo Fuller had been.
Robins was asked if it was possible or plausible to get into that kind of position again in today’s game, with players like Viktor Johansson, Luke Graham, Justin Devenny and Ethan Galbraith making a backbone that you could bank on for the long-term.
“That remains to be seen,” he said. “You’ve got to get players in who you can evolve with. If we can evolve as quickly as they do then they stay with you longer. If not then the natural order of things is that they will move on because they have improved and have seen to be assets that other people covet. That is where you may need to get to keep building.
“I think we are in different position because we are so lucky to have the owner that we’ve got. He is just incredible.
“But we’ve still got to try to get that model right and that’s something that Middlesbrough have done really well. If we can get the happy medium and we can grow with the players really quickly and get into a position where we can challenge – because we haven’t challenged, we’ve been too far off for too long and by the skin of our teeth been able to survive.
“People are looking and talking about that. I saw an article written in The Sentinel yesterday [with Lee Hendrie] talking about how we have to avoid the mid-season drop-away that has been symptomatic over a long time. That is something that we’ve got to guard against but obviously not worry about.
“Like I have said before, I look at the team and I look at the quality of the players and the level of players we’ve got in the building now and that gives you more confidence, more hope and excitement about what might happen.
"I've spoken about what we might need to do and what we definitely need to do moving forward and having those plans in place crystal clear and being able to action those and being able to move on those. I speak about that all the time but also the owner and his generosity in terms of his desire to see a successful Stoke City.
“Those are things you can’t take for granted, we don’t take for granted. We’ve got to work really hard to try to make sure things are in a really good place and then we can start to look at other things down the line. But they all go hand in hand, they all co-exist. We’ve got to make sure that we’re right and ready to go at every moment.”
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