Stoke City press conference live – Alex Neil speaks to media post transfer deadline day and pre-Reading

Stoke played with a higher intensity on Wednesday and although they were behind, you must have been pleased with the way the players kept going?

Neil: “First of all, I didn’t really watch every game before so I can’t give a balanced view on how the team played before but what I will say is that I think that’s just the starting point for us in terms of intensity. There is still a long way to go to get to the point where I’ll be happy with how we do that.

“We’ll always set out with a will to win the game. We want to play at an uncomfortable tempo for the opponent. I don’t think that’s common for us, it doesn’t seem to be common.

“I think the game we played was the highest distance we’ve travelled this season in terms of high intensity but equally I thought we worked really well. We had more re-gains in their half than any other team that’s played Swansea this season, it’s the least possession they’ve had in 15 months at this level, we had the most shots we’ve had in any game this season.

“When you take all those aspects into it, I think that’s really promising for the players in terms of what they’ve delivered and also reaffirming to players that the way they went about it is going to be the right method for us.

“Not every game is going to be the similar to that because Swansea are a unique team but our approach won’t be too dissimilar.”