Mark Hughes frustrated by Stoke's lack of creativity in Leicester defeat

Mark Hughes was left frustrated by his side's lack of creativity as Stoke succumbed to a 3-0 defeat at Leicester.

Goals from Danny Drinkwater, Jamie Vardy and Leonardo Ulloa gave the Foxes the win, while Stoke were shorn of the attacking talents of the injured Marko Arnautovic and left Bojan on the bench.

"We were poor in most parts of our game, to be perfectly honest," Hughes said. "It's very difficult to win points in the Premier League when you haven't got everybody at a good level, today, for whatever reason, we were below the high standards that we set.

"We just lacked a bit of creativity. Our ball retention at the top end wasn't great, credit to the defensive work of Leicester, they don't give you a lot of time on the ball.

"But I just felt in certain situations we needed to produce an end product and on too many occasions we didn't. In the end we were well beaten, Leicester deserved to win."

Stoke also had to do without captain Ryan Shawcross for much of the game after he was forced off with a hip problem.

However, Hughes is hopeful the centre-back will be fit to face Liverpool in the Capital One Cup semi-final second leg on Tuesday.

"It's an obvious concern at the moment, just his hip on his left-hand-side locked up on him and he couldn't continue," added the Welshman.

"He'll obviously have a lot of work done between now and Tuesday and we'll try and loosen that off and get him out there again.

"It's a little bit of a concern because he's had an injury in that area before so we just hope that it's a neural thing that can be unlocked and he'll be ready to go again.

"I'm pleased that we've got a game like that to go into because, as I've said many times, when we have disappointed ourselves and our supporters, almost without fail, we bounce back very quickly."