We're missing a goal, make no bones about it

"Everybody knows I always say I like it here and I want to stay at Stoke," said Boskamp. "Stoke is a fantastic club with a lot of possibilities and I say I want to stay here and work with Gerry Taggart and Noel Blake.

"I have a meeting on the Thursday after the QPR game on 30th March with Tony Scholes (Chief Exec), and with Gunnar Por Gislason (Chairman) on the phone. Maybe they say you can go, everything is possible."

He had little to say on the game itself but was relieved to get the win. “In the first half the two teams are scared, they are both afraid to lose," said Boskamp. "Lucky for us, the second half goes better when we score and in moments play better."

Despite the sixth successive defeat, Steve Cotterill was more upbeat, and thought we'd played better than in recent weeks. “It was certainly more encouraging than it has been for a while and I thought the game had 0-0 written all over it really,” he said after the game.

Of the goal he said, “Gallagher doesn't always run back and we'd warned the boys about that and he's managed to get in at the far post and tucked it away well. We had spoken about it at half time, but to be fair Garreth O'Connor had walked in the box and had to pick up Brammer so we can't have everything. But I thought today was encouraging from where we've been.”

Talking about the defensive performance he added, “I thought the back four and the goalkeeper today deserved to keep a clean sheet. Frank and John both had calf injuries, but to be honest we didn't miss them and the lads who played in those positions were excellent. I thought Michael Duff was magnificent at centre half and Wayne Thomas did well to stay on in the end because he kicked the bottom of someone's boot in the first half.

“We have no complaints though and on another day it would be good enough to get us a win. We're missing a goal, make no bones about it. It isn't easy being on this run but if we'd scored a goal in the first half we would have gone on and won the game.

“We have plenty of positives from today and to be honest, we haven't had too many of those in the last few weeks and I'm pleased with the players for their effort.”

Steve also had a word for the fans who got behind the team from start to last. “I just want to say how good I thought our support was,” he said. “When we needed it, they were great and got behind the lads, stuck by them and applauded them off at the end.”