It did not go unnoticed that, when former West Ham United wonderkid Divin Mubama trudged off towards the end of Stoke City’s latest Championship defeat, a frustrated Mark Robins wasted no time having a little word in his ear.
As for the exact nature of their conversation, well, only the striker and his manager know what was said, word for word.
But with the Stoke City hype-train ambling to a halt still some way shy of their destination – a one-way pass to the Premier League potentially as valid as Homer Simpson’s cracker-printed Superbowl tickets – the conductor may have half a mind to say this is the end of the line as far as Divin Mubama’s long run of successive starts is concerned.
When Mubama scored a 67 minute hat-trick against Bristol City in October, this was supposed to represent a return to goalscoring ways. The Manchester City loanee scored a soaring header on his Stoke debut, and followed that up with another a week later.
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Now, as the midway point of the 2025/26 season rapidly approaches, that Robins treble is starting to feel more and more like a false dawn.
And as inexperienced as Mubama may be – this is the former West Ham United prospect’s first season of regular, senior football – there is no place for passengers on Robins’ promotion train.
Divin Mubama under pressure as former West Ham United kid stalls at Stoke City
Take away that maiden professional hat-trick, and Mubama has not found the net in any of Stoke’s last 17 Championship fixtures. In total, he has played 20 league matches for the Potters and appeared on the scoresheet on only three separate occasions.
It is a testament to the paper-thin margins of England’s infamously unpredictable second tier that Stoke remain one point off the play-offs, despite losing three in a row and five of their last six. But the highly-experienced Mark Robins will not need telling that the direction of travel does not look good.
Suddenly, as the goals dry up and his performances become increasingly ineffective, the logic of Stoke betting the farm on a 21-year-old striker who spent last season playing reserve-team football feels increasingly flawed.
“Mubama must have a clause in the contract saying he has to play! No way Robins watches him every week and thinks he’s good enough,” one frustrated Stoke supporter said after another match passed the youngster by.
“We need better now,” another agrees, the Potters scoring fewer goals than any of the Championship’s top 13 teams.
“Mubama was awful [against Ipswich], and I’ve defended him on here a few times.”
“Played some nice stuff but looked toothless in the final third of the pitch. What’s the point in dominating possession if we don’t know what to do with it? Was Mubama playing? Because I didn’t notice him!”
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Mark Robins is backing Mubama amid Championship goal drought
Robins, the manager who helped lay the foundations for Coventry City’s flying form under Frank Lampard, was reluctant to aim his frustrations directly at Mubama’s doorstep after that wasted opportunity against a rejuvenated Ipswich.
But with a lack of goals and a lack of real threat in attack, it is inevitable that questions would start to be asked.
“He’d done well,” Robins said, speaking to Stoke Sentinel. “I can be critical with them all, and I am at times. It’s a critique rather than being critical actually but I can lose my temper too when [the performances are] downright lazy or profligate.
“We give up situations that we shouldn’t and we’ve got to be ruthless against teams. When you can be ruthless against teams, as soon as we can start to do that, that’s when we become a team that will become feared in the division.
“I’m really pleased with a lot of aspects of [how we played], and I’m really displeased about others and disappointed with others.”
In 39 Premier League 2 matches for West Ham and Man City, England Under-21 international Mubama scored 26 goals and set up nine more. He was the competition’s Golden Boot winner in 2024/25, having swapped East London for the north west while turning down a new contract in the process.
If his first few months in Staffordshire prove anything, it is that the gulf between reserve team football and the senior game is as substantial as you would expect.
“I think Mubama is still important if we’re starting with our strongest attackers, just for his hold up play,” a more positively-inclined fan writes, sticking up for Stoke’s under-pressure number nine.
“Mubama is a good young player. Our fanbase doesn’t seem to give any allowances for a player at the start of his career.”
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