He told the club website: "It’s a difficult time for us at the moment. "The performance was good, we’re creating chances but we’re not finishing them off. Stoke is a difficult place to go but I thought we handled it well. It’s similar to the last few weeks - we just can’t get the goals or we can’t see games off and get a victory.
"It’s my job to keep the belief in the players and that’s important because we all know we’re in the results business and the league table doesn’t look clever. But if the players keep doing that, sooner or later we’ll start winning games.
"The way it’s going for us at the minute, we’re playing ever so well but not getting our rewards. I thought we’d get one but it wasn’t to be. I thought they worked hard and defended desperately. We just needed that little break or that bit of quality, unfortunately we didn’t get that.
"We’ll all really disappointed, particularly the players because they’ve gone out there and they’ve given me everything again and the only thing they’re lacking is that finish – but as we all know that wins football matches."