There are high hopes for Luke Graham at Stoke City

Mark Robins is hoping summer signing Luke Graham will get the goal-scoring bug after his debut goal for Stoke City.

Stoke have needed to significantly improve the yield from every outfield position compared to recent seasons if they are to get to anywhere near the number of goals to challenge for a place in the top eight.

Robins is hoping that they are on the right track as Graham headed in the winner at Derby and became the 12th player to find the net in eight games. Ben Wilmot has also got on the scoresheet as well as wing-backs Eric Bocat and Ben Johnson.

The Potters have scored in all 13 games in league and cup so far this term – the longest run since 2001 – and they have only gone longer once in the 33 years since they were marching towards the old Division Two title under Lou Macari.

Robins said: “We kept going [at Derby] and we managed to get a good delivery into the box and got first contact. Luke is a young player who has got loads and loads of potential. To get his first goal will be brilliant for him because it gives him belief and that gives him that understanding to go and do it.

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“I thought he was on the end of everything good in terms of when the ball came in. Defensively he gets his head on things, clears that out and deals with the majority of danger whether it was on the ground or in the air. I thought he was really good.

“Then Maxi Talovierov came on for Bosun Lawal and I thought he was immense. He won some unbelievably big headers for us. Then when it goes through (the defence) we’ve got who I believe is the best goalkeeper in the division.”

Graham, aged 22, joined Stoke from Dundee in July and has been adapting to life in the blood and thunder of the Championship, just like fellow imports Jack McGlynn and Luca Bombino (both MLS). It's a lot of work in the week as well as on match days.

Robins added in an interview for Radio Stoke: “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.”

Stoke's longest scoring streaks

In seasons that Stoke have been a league club, the longest they have gone scoring in every match is the 21 games between September 1948 and January 1949 under Bob McGrory. They scored 46 goals during that run, led by club legends Frank Bowyer and Freddie Steele.

The Potters went on a 19-match run in 1934 and 18 matches up to November 1965 and up to February 1993.