Mark Hughes bemoans individual errors after Crystal Palace defeat
Posted on January 26, 2018 in Stoke
Stoke City boss Mark Hughes has said that his side were made to pay for individual mistakes during Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace. The Staffordshire outfit took the lead in the second-half with Xherdan Shaqiri, but they were pegged back just three minutes later with Ruben Loftus-Cheek restoring parity.
Eventually, Mamadou Sakho popped up with a 92nd-minute winner which handed the Eagles only their second Premier League win of the season – both of which have come at Selhurst Park. Following the game, Hughes was bitterly disappointed with the result as he felt Stoke should have won the match.
He said: “We’ve restricted the home side to very few clear-cut opportunities and by virtue of individual errors we’ve allowed them to score two goals. The story of the game should have been Shaqiri’s excellent individual goal. We had more than enough chances to win the game. If we’d kept the lead a little bit longer it would have been more difficult for them to come back at us. Overall our form is OK and our general play is good, but we’re making too many defensive errors individually and collectively.”
The defeat leaves Stoke stranded in 15th position, and only three points separate them from the drop zone heading into the busy festive period. Hughes’ men now have back-to-back games against Liverpool and Swansea City at the Bet365 Stadium, and they could fancy at least three points with the latter presently rooted to the relegation spots.
Stoke failed to finish in the top-half of the table for the first-time under Mark Hughes during the previous campaign, and their reduced transfer spending appears to be hindering their prospects of making progress further up the table. Stoke grabbed valuable points out of Arsenal and Manchester United earlier on in the campaign, but they have since failed to replicate a similar showing at the back.