Stoke & Staffordshire

Image source, Rex Features

Mark Robins hopes a capacity crowd can roar Stoke City on towards Championship safety when they host Sheffield Wednesday on Friday (15:00 BST).

The Potters sit four places and five points above the relegation zone with four games remaining after taking eight points from a four-match unbeaten run.

Robins' side are also unbeaten in their past four at home, beating Blackburn and QPR and drawing with Watford and Luton since their last home defeat in February, against Middlesbrough - which is their only loss on home turf since Boxing Day.

"There's some excitement again around how we're playing, the results that we are picking up and the belief that's starting to grow," Robins told BBC Radio Stoke.

"What we've got to do is go and put in a performance that keeps the fans coming back."

"It really is exciting," he added. "The noise level that we have experienced so far has been brilliant, so I'm really looking forward to them getting behind the players and hearing them in full voice and seeing the players reciprocate."

Wednesday have picked up just two points from their past five games, though Robins remains wary of the threat of Danny Rohl's side, who are unbeaten in four away games, earning eight points.

He said: "They'll be set-up to try and counter, to try and hurt us wherever they possibly can. They have got a strong squad and powerful players there and are coached really well."

"Personally I think it means you can breathe and relax. Not only is the result in itself colossal - we have a good gap to the relegation zone to the point where it would take a mathematical disaster for us the get relegated."

Stoke fan Ben Rowley sums up the magnitude of the Potters' crucial 1-0 win at relegation-threatened Cardiff City on this week's episode of A Cold Wet Tuesday Night with BBC Radio Stoke's Lucas Yeomans.

Victory took Mark Robins' side five points clear of the bottom three with four games to play.

The pair look ahead to those matches, starting with Good Friday's home game with Sheffield Wednesday - where another win could all but seal their safety.

Mark Elliott
BBC Radio Stoke commentator

Stoke City fans feel a whole lot better about their team's survival prospects after the 1-0 win at fellow strugglers Cardiff, which sent them five points clear of the Bluebirds in the final relegation place in the Championship.

The Potters have hovered above the dotted line for much of the season, always threatening to pull away to safety before being dragged back into the pack, largely due to their own inconsistency.

Since Mark Robins joined at the turn of the year, improvement has come steadily in increments and coincided with the return to fitness of a number of key players.

The past eight games have yielded 12 points, better performances and just two defeats at Coventry and Millwall that probably could have gone another way.

Stoke will be confident they can get a positive result at home to Sheffield Wednesday where a win would take them up to 50 points and almost certainly guarantee a place in the second tier for next season. Even a draw would leave the teams below them with an awful lot to do to overhaul the Potters.

One slight concern is the presence of promotion-chasing Leeds and Sheffield United on the fixture list - two excellent sides with a need for points of their own.

The worst-case scenario for Stoke would see them heading into a final day clash at a Derby side also fighting the drop and needing points to stay up.

That's the kind of drama and tension every fanbase would rather avoid but that victory in South Wales gives Stoke every chance to have it all wrapped up with their supporters' fingernails still very much intact.

Image source, Getty Images

Stoke City defender Ben Wilmot said every game between now and the end of the Championship season will be "nervy" but the Potters are playing well enough to stay up.

The 25-year-old's late deflected effort at relegation rivals Cardiff City, which went down as a Will Fish own goal, helped the Potters to a vital 1-0 victory in the race for survival.

Mark Robins' side moved five points clear of the drop zone following the win in Wales with four games remaining.

"It was obviously going to be a nervy game with the position they're in, all these games are now," Wilmot told BBC Radio Stoke.

"I think it would've been huge either way - win, lose or draw.

"It's in our hands, so we've just got to keep doing what we're doing, keep playing well and the results will come, and we'll be fine in the end."

Wilmot also said it is "nice" to be playing in a settled back four alongside Junior Tchamadeu, Ashley Phillips and Eric Junior Bocat, who have all started the past six games together.

"Me and Ash have got a good connection, I enjoy playing with Eric on my left, and I think Ash enjoys playing with Junior on his right," he added.

"We've been playing for a good number of games together now. I feel like we're improving with each other in every game and I feel nice and solid with the three of them."