Mark Hughes was delighted to record successive wins by beating West Brom 2-0, but it was tempered by the fact that his two-goal hero, Mame Biram Diouf, will soon be missing on African Nations Cup duty.
Stoke are up into the top half of the table after registered back-to-back league victories for the first time this season.
The West Brom result also made for a second successive clean sheet for the hosts after 11 games without one, and Hughes was delighted.
"Back-to-back wins is really important, and clean sheets as well -- that is really encouraging for us,'' Hughes said. "It was difficult for both teams to be fair [playing so soon after doing so on Boxing Day], and probably in the first half we lacked a little bit of sharpness.
"But in the second half we showed more energy and then scored the first goal, which today I thought was always going to be very important.''
Hughes admitted it will be a blow losing Diouf -- now with six Stoke goals this term -- to African Nations Cup duty next month.
"It is a little bit frustrating,'' the manager said. "We are going too miss him, but hopefully they [Senegal] get knocked out quickly!''
Hughes also revealed Potters forward Bojan Krkic -- who had a role in both goals -- had come off with a hamstring problem which will be assessed on Monday.