Hughes eager to restore Stoke home comforts

Hughes and his players headed into the international break buoyed by an excellent victory at Premier League champions Manchester City but their return to the Britannia Stadium turned sour after half-time when Leonardo Ulloa’s third goal of the season gave Leicester the first win of their top-flight return.

Stoke enjoyed the lion's share of possession and were particularly dominant in the first half but left empty handed as they did in the opening-day defeat to Aston Villa on home turf.

"For the most part we did okay today," Hughes said. "Certainly first half, I was pleased with what we produced.

"Albeit we just needed that break at the right time, something to fall to us in the box.

"We put any number of crosses into the area but unfortunately today nothing dropped to us.

"You know at some point in a Premier League game that the opposition will get an opportunity.

"Then it's important from our point of view that we defend that situation correctly. Unfortunately we didn't - we should have done better.

"At that point it becomes a harder day, very similar to the situation we found in our first game against Aston Villa.

"We played better today than we did against Aston Villa in my view, but it’s a similar result."

Stoke impressed by soaking up waves of pressure in victory at City, but Hughes concedes his men will have to get used to picking their way through teams when playing at home as they look to reprise last season's impressive form at the Britannia.

"We've got to find a way because we've talked about this at length," he added.

"Teams will come here and show us respect in terms of our ability and what we can do to them.

"They were set up to try and frustrate - we have no issue with it because we did a similar thing at Man City a couple of weeks back, we got a positive result and everyone is patting us on the back.

"We can't moan and groan about it because it's good play, we accept that but we've got to find a way at home to get back to winning ways.

"Our home form last year was a real strength so we need to retain that this year."