Goalkeeper Butland urges Stoke team mates to arrest slump

Stoke's 3-0 capitulation at the Britannia Stadium against Everton on Saturday meant they lost their last three league matches without scoring and having conceded nine goals.

(Reuters)

Mark Hughes' men have gone from fighting for the European spots in seventh place to 11th in the table with 13 games left.

"It's not any kind of crisis. But there's things that needs to be addressed and words need to be had," Butland told the BBC.

"We've got to try and make sure that performances like this don't continue, in terms of keeping clean sheets and putting the ball in the back of the net, which we've not done enough of.

The club also exited the League Cup and the FA Cup during the last two weeks.

Stoke will hope to get back to winning ways when they travel to take on relegation-threatened Bournemouth in the league on Saturday.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)