Injury latest from Clayton Wood as Stoke City return to the bet365 Stadium for matches against Bristol City and Preston North End

Mark Robins will be relieved to give his players a rare full week to build up to their next game in the Championship.

The Stoke City diary has been busy since the 2026/27 season kicked off on August 8 with a Carabao Cup tie at home against Oldham Athletic. Just over two months later and summer signing Ethan Galbraith, for example, has already played in 13 clubs games plus three more for Northern Ireland. The only break he has had was when he had a new born son.

Robins has made several references to the physical challenges that are being asked. The reworked international calendar meant four fixtures in 11 days for nine of his players who then returned to Stoke straight into a three-game week.

Justin Devenny. has gone from biding his time at Crystal Palace to fitting in 11 games for Stoke and Northern Ireland since making his debut against Charlton on September 5. He is a runner too. He had already clocked nearly 7km in the first-half alone at Bolton when Robins took him off at half-time to catch his breath.

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Djibril Soumare has already racked up 935 minutes including three full 90 minutes. By the time Stoke are through a home double header against Bristol City and Preston North End in the next fortnight he is on course to have pretty much played as much as he did all through last season at Sheffield United (1,139 minutes), where he only played one full match.

Jack McGlynn was taken off at half-time against Derby County as he gets used to the intensity of life in England. He had played 18 MLS games in six months up to the end of August with Houston Dynamo and then seven in six weeks at Stoke.

Robins has been glad to have the depth to make changes and, touch wood, the injury list has not been escalating like it has in recent years. Aaron Cresswell and Svante Ingelsson are stepping up their rehabilitation while Sam Gallagher will hopefully be back sooner rather than later.

Derby boss John Eustace, who is navigating a sea of injuries, must have looked enviously that Stoke had to leave Ben Gibson and Tomas Rigo out of their match day party.

Stoke left Pride Park with three points on Saturday and hope that Eric Bocat will be fine after needing to be substituted after treatment. "I think it was a knee on knee and maybe there was a bit of rocking on it but I'm hopeful he's going to be ok," said Robins.

He added on McGlynn: “Jack McGlynn is ok. He’s another one who looked leggy. Some decisions and some of the executions. I said to him it was no reflection on how he played it was just energy. This is his first three-game week really in terms of picking points up and we’re in autumn going into winter and it’s different. He’s done really well so far."

Devenny is clearly a natural athlete while there are high hopes for Soumare as he builds up his stamina and Bosun Lawal and Junior Tchamadeu still need to prove they can last the distance.

Robins said recently: “Djibril needs to play those games to really develop and you can see the player he is going to be. That’s the excitement because you look further down the line. Hopefully we can keep him on the pitch because he can keep developing that way.

“The other side of things and the challenge for us is the players who get injured too often and how we use them. Bosun is probably – there is a lot of talent but I want to say – our most talented centre-half with his attributes, his strengths. He is a huge miss every time he is out with an injury. The challenge for us is how we can keep him fit, keep him on the pitch and playing without him breaking down.

“Obviously he’s had challenges because of the sheer size of him, like Sam Gallagher, and how powerful they are, they have to build that up over time without injury to be able to sustain it. Those are some of the challenges we’ve got."

Stoke overhauled their fitness department ahead of this season to try to meet those challenges head on. In came Damian Roden as head of medical and performance as well as Matt Radcliffe and Mark Sertori.

The manager is expecting to see the benefits of that more as the season goes on.

He said in an interview for Radio Stoke at Derby: “We had a change in the sports science and medical department. Damian Roden is in charge of that and it’s a big, big responsibility. You’ve got to maintain the fitness levels of the players, make sure we do the right things in training, that we give them the right type of work within the context of a fitness regime.

“(He was given that responsibility) in the summer because we had so many injuries last year. So we’ve been looking at that and how we can improve. It’s a new way of working for me and there are teething problems at times but it’s not anything you can’t get through.

“I think that will bear fruit more and more as we go through. Players start to look different physically and then they start to change mentally on the back of that. We’ve got a really good group of players who are really together. We’ve spoken about it since I’ve come in but this group is really together and there’s a lot of quality there as well.”