An unbeaten six-game start to the campaign ended at Rotherham, prior to the international break, after a limp first half display out of kilter with the energy and intensity of what had gone before.
Alex Neil’s Potters have lost three of their opening five league games, but dig deeper and a summer window that saw 18 new arrivals signals to Wagner Stoke mean business.
“After Southampton this is the team with the best individuals we will have faced. The signings they’ve done, the amount of money they spent, I think this speaks for itself what their aim is,” he said. “Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get this consistency. And this is how it looks.
“Super individuals who have to gel and play as a team. When they do, then they can play like they have done against Rotherham twice this season. This is a talented squad.
“There are not a lot of secrets before this game. We know exactly what we will face. And I said this before if we do our homework right, if we do our basics right, then I think we can be a very, very uncomfortable team to play against. I don’t want it to be enjoyable when teams play us.
“This group can fight, and they can play football. First and foremost, make sure you’re ready for the fight and for the hard work, for the defensive side, and then use your skills as a football player – the technical skills as well.”
Deadline night signings Hwang Ui-jo and former Stoke defender Danny Batth are available. The experienced centre back played 100 league games for the Potters in a three year stint before moving onto Sunderland.
“He’s a top, top professional, and a very good human being as well,” said Wagner. “He knows the league, he played for Sunderland in the cup, he had a full pre-season. The latest of our late signings on deadline night. We are happy that we have him with us.
“Now for him and Ui-jo it’s a lot of work to do in the video meeting rooms to get an understanding of how we like to attack, how we play out in the build up, how we like to defend, with high pressure in the mid block and in the low block as well, and how we like to defend our box. A lot of video work. But these are smart guys that will take the information on board quite well.”
Wagner is confident there will be no repeat of City’s struggles against Rotherham prior to the break.
“When we said in the past, it’s all about us, I think this first half that showed this is the truth. We were clearly below-par,” he said. “We’ve spoken about what went wrong. We don’t have to search for the reason why. I know every single player, and we as a group, want to correct what went wrong at Rotherham.
“Maybe it’s a little bit unfair, isn’t it? We could speak about seven games in total, and one half was very, very poor or even less than poor. But I said this to the group, it makes sense to speak about this one half, even if it was only one out of 14, because this is the half we can really learn from.
“This league is too good. You can concede a defeat even to Rotherham. But we had shown in the first six games what we are capable of, and this group is good. Now it is on us which direction we’d like to go.
“Everybody knows the answer. And this is what really excites me, to bring on the next opponent after this poor half against Rotherham, at home with our supporters hopefully on their best as well.”
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