Stoke City boss Mark Hughes hopes they're now shaking off their former reputation.

Hughes has been delighted with their progress this season.

"We're getting to the business end of the season and people are saying 'hang on, Stoke are eighth, what's going on there?' Maybe they've come to the conclusion we've not done too badly," Hughes told the Telegraph.

"We're under the radar, which maybe is a good thing. Sometimes we feel aggrieved we don't get enough recognition for what we're doing - other times we are quite pleased nobody is paying us any attention.

"We have to live with it at the moment, maybe in the future it will change significantly. We get frustrated sometimes but it's not going to change overnight. I think we surprise people.

"We've been called dirty and long-ball, but we're a different team. We like to think we've got more strings to our bow now."