Stoke City

Robert Huth has demanded Stoke's defence quickly return to their miserly best to avoid another heavy defeat at Manchester City in this weekend's FA Cup tie. The Potters lost 3-1 at Swansea on Saturday, condemning them to a fourth league game without a win, a run which has seen them ship 13 goals. That is in stark contrast to Stoke's defensive record up to Christmas. Tony Pulis' side had kept the most clean sheets of any Premier League side with nine and conceded just 13 goals. At the time only Bayern Munich, Malaga and Juventus had conceded fewer in Europe's major leagues. While Stoke have not been helped by injuries to first-choice full-backs Andy Wilkinson, Marc Wilson and Ryan Shotton, Huth knows there must be an improvement at the Etihad Stadium if they are to avoid a repeat of their 3-0 loss there in the league. He said: "I can't put my finger on it. We assess every game and try to cut out our mistakes, and at the moment teams are cutting through us and getting a few more goals than they did. We are very disappointed but I can't tell you how or why. But you have to give others credit. All three goals came from our possession and to be fair to them they punished us. Hopefully we will not do it next week. It is easy to say we are conceding too many goals. But we have to put it right for next week. Manchester City are playing some good stuff and they beat us on New Year's Day, so hopefully it will be different next week."