Stoke called on to end EPL season unbeaten

Stoke City manager Mark Hughes has challenged his players to go undefeated for the rest of the Premier League season in order to push for a Europa League berth.

City are ninth in the table with eight games to play and Hughes told the Stoke Sentinel newspaper that producing an unbeaten run was a realistic target.

"I think we have to aim for that," the Welshman said. "Sometimes we might come up short but it's important to have the mentality that we feel we can do it and then we will come close to what we want to do."

Hughes' men need to finish in the top seven to have any chance of qualifying for the Europa League.

Stoke travel to 14th-placed Watford on Saturday before hosting Swansea City who are 16th.

The three fixtures after that are tough trips to Liverpool and Manchester City and a visit from second-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

"We've got difficult fixtures ... but if we go into them with the focus and the demand on ourselves ... then we will see how far it takes us," said Hughes.