Stoke manager Mark Hughes says his side did not deserve to lose at Burnley
Tuesday 12 December 2017 23:11, UK
Mark Hughes says his Stoke side did not deserve to lose at Burnley, and hailed the reaction of his side during the 1-0 defeat.
The Potters did well to match their hosts for much of the game, but an 88th-minute strike from Ashley Barnes made sure the points stayed at Turf Moor.
It was a fourth defeat in five Premier League matches for Stoke, but Hughes does not believe that his side should have lost the game, calling the performance of his side "magnificent".
"Clearly it wasn't the result we wanted and it wasn't the result we deserved in all honesty," he told Sky Sports.
"We restricted them to very few opportunities, I think their goal was the one clear shot we let them have the whole game. I thought our guys were magnificent in terms of standing up to the challenge.
"You know what you face here. It's not going to be clever football, it's not going to test you with clever movements and patterns, it's just challenging for long balls and you've got to be up for that. Unfortunately, we lost Kurt Zouma and I think that obviously that diminished our ability to compete for the balls in the air.
"In the end, they've got a little bit of fortunate, it seems to be shining on them at the moment, and that's all they need. The lad [Barnes] put a good strike on it and that's won the game for them but please don't tell me that anyone thinks they deserved to win that because they didn't."
Stoke remain in 15th place on 16 points - three above the drop zone - but Hughes was pleased with the reaction of his side after a 5-1 loss to Tottenham, and says Stoke will be OK.
"Absolutely [I saw a reaction]. In comparison to what we produced at the weekend, I think everybody saw it was a committed performance and the lads put everything into it," he added.
"They're devastated because, as I said to them afterwards, they didn't deserve that and they deserved to get something out of a game that they worked so hard in.
"We'll be OK, we're fine, we've got a group of players that are trying to turn this around. We've had a couple of difficult away games which have tested us but I'm encouraged by what I saw tonight and at the weekend, we'll go again. We've got two good home games coming up and it's our intention to win them."
