Stoke City keeper Jack Butland says there needs to be hard words in the dressing room to reverse the Potters' untimely run of one win in six league matches.

Mark Hughes' side have exited both the League Cup and FA Cup within the last fortnight, as well as slipping to 11th in the table after three successive 3-0 Premier League defeats.

"It's not any kind of crisis," Butland told BBC Radio Stoke.

"But there's things that needs to be addressed and words need to be had."

Following Saturday's latest reverse, at home to Everton, the 22-year-old England goalkeeper added: "We're better than this.

"We've got to try and make sure that performances like this don't continue, in terms of keeping clean sheets and putting the ball in the back of the net, which we've not done enough of.

"We started January well, by winning at Norwich, followed by a good performance against Arsenal.

"But we're disappointed with the last two weeks in terms of falling out of the two cups and this week's two results."