Hughes rues Stoke´s missed opportunities

Mark Hughes was left frustrated as an impressive Stoke City performance only produced one point in their 1-1 draw with Sunderland.

Despite falling behind in the opening minute to a Conor Wickham strike, Stoke rallied well and were level through Charlie Adam before the half hour.

Chances came and went for both sides in the remaining hour and Hughes was disappointed his men were not able to find the cutting edge to secure all three points.

“It was a terrible start, but a great response and the first half was arguably best we’ve played for quite some time in terms of our control and opportunities we were able to create,” said the Stoke boss.

“I thought we had a number of situations that we should have capitalised on, more than we were able to.

“Thankfully we got back into the game from Charlie and at 1-1 we’re thinking ‘second half, more of the same and we’ll take the game away from them’. 

“But they pressed us a little bit higher and we weren’t able to dictate play from the back, that affected us and the game became fragmented and open, but we still had number of opportunities. In fairness they had opportunities to pinch it.

“In the end we are disappointed with 1-1 because that was an opportunity that was missed.”