Sorba Thomas deserves credit whether he meant his goals or not – Mark Robins

Mark Robins was full of praise for winger Sorba Thomas after the Wales winger’s brace in Stoke’s 3-0 win over Charlton.

Thomas scored from what appeared to be two crosses from the left side as the Potters scored three times in a brilliant first-half display.

Million Manhoef was also on the scoresheet as Stoke moved back into the automatic promotion places following back-to-back defeats against Coventry and Leicester.

Robins said: “Sorba deserves all the credit for taking an incredible shot from wide on the left that found the top corner.

“Whether it’s a cross or a shot doesn’t make any difference, it’s in the net, which gave us a really good start to the game.

“From that point on it looked like we just grew in stature, we maintained that intensity to get the second.

“He’s been fantastic, and long may it continue. He’s started off really well 17 games in. Really good games coming up, he’s started off with quality but for him and for us we want him to keep growing and keep being a leader, because he’s becoming a leader in the dressing room and in the club.

“We started off really brightly. When you look back at the last three games we’ve not got our just desserts from either of the two previous ones.

“The performance levels have been really good, so on that basis confidence doesn’t sink. We performed to a really good level tonight and started with real intensity.

“The only thing for me was we tried to be too elaborate in the second half. If you’re more direct and you’ve got direct passing and running then you can go and win the game a lot more handsomely.”

Charlton manager Nathan Jones admitted his team were second best as the Addicks slumped to a third defeat on the bounce.

Jones watched his side fall 4-0 down to former club Southampton at the weekend and Charlton found themselves 3-0 behind after 35 minutes at the Bet365 Stadium.

Jones said: “Really disappointed in terms of the level of performance.

“We came here on the back of a tough game on the weekend where we were uncharacteristically poor and then to concede after three minutes, you’re on the back foot.

“We were second best all over today. We didn’t really look like scoring. We were powder puff in lots of ways.

“The goals today were really poor, and it doesn’t give you a chance of winning a football game. They grow in confidence then, goals change games, and all we could do then was stem the tide.

“For that to happen in 20-25 minutes after what happened on the weekend it’s a tough one to take because we’ve gone from being the best defensive side in the league to being the worst in two games.”