Brittle defending worries Pulis

Tony Pulis has put Stoke City’s poor run of form down to poor defending following their fourth-straight league defeat on Saturday.

Pulis’ side went down 3-2 to Queens Park Rangers in front of their home fans at Britannia Stadium despite taking an early lead through Jonathan Walters’ sixth-minute effort.

OPR lead 2-1 at half-time and added to their tally shortly after the break, with Stoke getting back into the match via Ryan Shawcross’ close-range header, but the hosts failed to press on for an equaliser.

Questioned on Stoke’s dismal form, Pulis told reporters: “The big thing here is that we’ve conceded three goals, we’ve done that too regularly now, our defending has been pretty poor.”

“You score two goals at home and create the chances we have and maybe could have had two penalties, but we’ve got to be a lot stronger, a lot tighter defensively and we’re not that at the moment.”

“In terms of today, it’s individual errors. Just people and us getting punished for it.”

Pulis’ opposite number Neil Warnock believed it was a valiant effort from his QPR team amid a spate of injuries suffered by his players during the match.

The QPR boss told reporters: “It’s just like an accident and emergency unit at the moment. At the end (Luke) Young had to come off, Danny Gabbidon’s struggling and Armand Traore who wanted to come off and that shows what a great result it was.”

“We’ve had a lot of injuries, long-term Kieron Dyer, Matthew Connolly and I think all credit to them, because when you come to Stoke you’ve got to stand up and be counted and I thought we did.”

“Helguson got a golf ball on his cheek in the first five minutes, but did it affect him? I think it made him even more determined to play well and I thought he was magnificent today.”

“All credit to Stoke, they never give in and you know what’s coming, you know it’s going to be in your box. I was pleased to see the lads roll their sleeves up and defend when they had to.”

Last season’s Championship winners find themselves in the top half of the table after the win over Stoke and Warnock is enjoying the return to Premier League football.

“It’s been a fantastic journey and it’s a fantastic league. The biggest disappointment for me was outplaying Manchester City and losing and everyone patting you on the back, when really I was gutted, because we deserved to get at least one maybe three points in that game.”

“We can’t quite believe we QPR fans, 18 months ago talking about going in the next division (League One) at one stage. So it’s a remarkable journey, I’m sure (QPR owner) Tony Fernandes will be on the phone when I get back.”