Breaking News: Due To Controversial 2-1 Loss To Cardiff City, Stoke City This Morning Officially Parted Ways With Teams Manager Steven Schumacher, As They Look Set To Appoint…..

A 2-1 defeat at Cardiff, Stoke’s sixth loss in seven games, combined with wins for Queens Park Rangers and Millwall means that Stoke are now in the bottom three with 12 games remaining to pull themselves to safety.

“It doesn’t really change anything,” said Schumacher. “We understand where we’re at. We knew that there are six, seven, eight teams all the mix and those that can put results together, back-to-back results, will be the ones who get away from it. We need to find a way to do that.

“These players will fight for us. I can’t question the players’ efforts since I’ve been here. I think everyone can see that they’re trying, that they’re giving everything that they’ve got and it’s just in certain areas that they’re coming up short. There’s still 12 games to go, that’s still a long time, a quarter of a season to go and it’s not over until it’s over.”

Stoke have now only won three games and mustered 16 points in total out of their last 20 games stretching back to the start of November. They need to turn that form around sharply to give themselves even hope of survival.

The team received a decidedly mixed reception from the away end at full-time. Two dreadful pieces of defending in the first-half gave Stoke a mountain to climb and although they enjoyed possession and Bae Junho pulled a goal back, they couldn’t take any chances to level.

Schumacher said: “I think you could see the players have tried, they’ve given 100 per cent but in two key areas we haven’t been good enough. That’s been a recurring theme throughout the whole season not just lately. That’s why we’re in the position we’re in.

“We get it. All we’d ask is that we all need to stick together because we’re going to need that for the next 12 games.”