Game against Chelsea ideal for Stoke, says manager Hughes

Chelsea are in the midst of a crisis, and will be looking to ease the pressure with a win in the League Cup against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium on Tuesday.

Champions Chelsea, who are the holders of the League Cup, also need to bounce back after Sunday’s damaging 2-1 defeat at the hands of West Ham United.

Zouma, who put in a competent display against Kiev, retained the right-back position in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to West Ham, but considering his excellent performance at centre-half as Chelsea beat Arsenal 2-0 recently it seems a freaky move from embattled boss Mourinho.

Since then Chelsea have won one of their three games, against a free-falling Aston Villa, with a top-four place in the Premier League in jeopardy and even progression to the knockout stages of the Champions League by no means a formality.

Reaching for positives, though, Chelsea could point toward the fact that against West Ham they were an inch away from one goal, had another denied by a marginal offside decision and were forced to play more than 45 minutes with 10 men. Mourinho was given an £8,000 fine and wanted about his future conduct.

Asked if he feels Mourinho oversteps the mark when it comes to match officials, Hughes said: “I think sometimes – and we’re all guilty of it – maybe if you’ve had a bad result you’ll try to change the focus to something that has happened in or around the game rather than it being on the result itself”.

“Other than that, Marc Muniesa has got a slight (thigh) problem, but we are likely to give him another 24 hours”.

“I don’t know why we have not been able to achieve good things this season with the great players we have in our squad”.

“It’s coming from all corners at the moment so we have to cope with that”.

“I thought we were well in the game, no matter what the situation was, and the tiny little differences didn’t go our way”.

“This league is very unpredictable so we need to take care of our performances first – I think our performances are getting better so we just need to keep that going”.