Charlie Adam insists the Stoke players are to blame for their poor season, not Mark Hughes.
Stoke City midfielder Charlie Adam has opened up about his side’s disappointing 2017/18 campaign that could still end with relegation, with the club sitting in 19th place, one point from safety.
The Scotland international insists that the squad is to blame more than anyone else, and that the players need to take a long look at themselves and give all they can in the remaining eight league fixtures to help maintain the club’s Premier League status.
Mark Hughes was sacked following a run of seven league defeats in a row earlier in the season, but Adam explained that none of the players ever wanted to see that happen.
The former Rangers player sympathised with Hughes, who has since been appointed by Southampton in a bid to salvage their season, whom he said took the majority of the flack for the under performing Stoke team.
Speaking to BBC 5 Live Sport yesterday, the midfield veteran said: “We’ve got to take the blame as a group of players. We’ve not performed, and obviously the previous manager [Mark Hughes] lost his job.
“I think he felt it wasn’t working anymore and it had probably run its course. We never ever wanted the manager to go because we respect him, we enjoyed working for him, but the results weren’t good enough.
“We lost seven on the bounce, and somebody has to loose their job and he was the one that took that flak, but we know in that dressing room that we weren’t good enough.”
Current Potters boss Paul Lambert will be hoping that the very crop of Stoke players who Adam said are to blame for the club’s abysmal season have it in them to pull a comeback out of the bag, starting with Everton at home his Saturday.
Everton will be without a number of key players such as Gylfi Sigurdsson and Theo Walcott, and Adam and co must take full advantage of this if they are to stand any chance of staying in England’s top flight.
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