Steven Schumacher hopes Stoke City have got a monkey off their back by finally scoring an equaliser at home as they came back to draw with Championship rivals Huddersfield Town.
Stoke trailed to a Bojan Radulovic goal at the break at the bet365 Stadium in a tense match between two sides at the wrong end of the table who both knew the significance of this result. But a Ki-Jana Hoever special brought things level just after the break, a first equaliser in the league at headquarters in 17 months and 32 matches; 16 of which have ended in defeat.
“It’s a real positive that we’ve done that in the second half because we’ve said all along it’s not easy here,” said Schumacher. “The disappointment affects everyone, in my opinion, too much. I know nobody likes to concede a goal but goals at home are going to happen against you. You can’t overreact to it.
REACTION: Stoke 1 Huddersfield 1
PLAYER RATINGS: Marks out of 10 for Stoke’s draw with Huddersfield
“We try to get onto the players all the time to stay positive and keep believing and I’d ask the fans to do the same – but I understand that if you’ve not done it since December 2022 then it becomes a habit. Thankfully we’ve broken that habit today and got something positive from the game. But it shouldn’t have been that long, it shouldn’t have taken until the 40th game of this season for that to occur.”
The draw keeps Stoke five points ahead of third-bottom Huddersfield and the relegation places going into the final six games of the season.
Sheffield Wednesday are now six points behind Stoke in second bottom following a defeat at Middlesbrough while Plymouth Argyle have slipped to fourth-bottom due to a home loss to Bristol City.
Birmingham City scrambled to a 1-0 home win over Preston North End but Millwall have been sucked back in with a 2-1 loss at Rotherham United, although Rotherham are just one result away from their relegation being confirmed.
Schumacher said: “We probably could have won it especially in the second half but four points over the Easter weekend is ok. It shows how important Friday’s win was. As we’ve said all along, there are never any easy games in the Championship and that was a bit of a battle.
“I felt we were good for the first 15 or 20 minutes, we started the game really well, but we just lost our way a little bit in the first half, Huddersfield got on top and deserved to take the lead.
“We changed things up a bit at half-time and spoke about playing with a bit more tempo and urgency in the second half and run forward a bit more. We did that. It was really pleasing to come from behind and get something from the game here at home.
“I thought all the subs came on and did well so it was a positive result in the end.”
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