Stoke City manager Mark Hughes believes that his side had to show “courage and character” to come from behind to beat Swansea City 2-1.
Swansea took the lead after three minutes through former Stoke loanee Wilfried Bony, who fired past Jack Butland on the volley.
Stoke however scored two goals within four minutes just before half time in order to take the lead, which they managed to hold on to.
Showing character
Speaking to the gathered press, Hughes said: “We had to show courage and character from that point onwards and just clear our heads.
“It would have been very easy to feel sorry for ourselves but I didn’t see any evidence of that, we just dusted ourselves down and got on with the job in hand and set about trying to do something about the situation we found ourselves in and we did that obviously by getting back on level terms and in the end, taking the game away from them.”
Hughes analysed the opening goal, and said that “it was the worst start we could have possibly have made. Great strike from Wilf [Wilfried Bony] you have to say. Great finish, first ball into our box and he’s hit it early. Not a lot Jack [Butland] could do about it in fairness.”
Butland praise
Once Stoke were in the lead, Butland made a host of saves to keep the Potters in front which enabled them to claim all three points.
On Butland, Hughes said: “That’s why he’s a top ‘keeper, because he makes key saves at key moments in games that protects leads or protects situations and he’s done it again and that’s why I was delighted when he put his hand up and said if you need me then I’m available so it was quite an easy decision.”
Hughes went on to say: “Sometimes the quality wasn’t quite what we needed, especially with the couple of counter attacks that we had that could have taken the game completely away from them but obviously at 2-1, there’s always a risk that they might be able to get back on level terms. We’re probably grateful for a couple of stops from Jack, a fantastic save from his own centre-half probably the pick of them.”
“It’s always a little bit difficult when you come up against a formation that we haven’t matched up against in recent times.” Hughes admitted as Swansea lined up with their usual diamond in midfield. “I think systems and formations come in and out. The diamond in midfield isn’t one that we’ve faced in recent times so we had to understand what we needed to do just to get a foothold in the game because for a long time they were able to keep the ball and we couldn’t get pressure on the ball to get that momentum we needed in our play.
“Then we were able to pressure higher up the field and that’s where the goals came from.”
Hughes concluded by saying: “I think performance-wise, we’ve done okay and haven’t got results. Our performance today was good enough in terms of the football we want to play and how we want to play, maybe that wasn’t quite at the level that we wanted but it’s about getting the job done today and we were able to do that thankfully.”
Stoke next face a tricky away trip to Wembley to face Tottenham Hotspur, but will be buoyed after today’s performance.