Stoke City goalkeeper Jack Butland has sent a defiant message to fans after their awful start to the season continued on Saturday.

Butland has been a regular throughout the rotten start, with pressure growing on Nathan Jones more and more by the week, but the England international is not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Posting on Instagram, alongside a photograph of himself mid-match, Butland wrote: "Working hard to get these results turned around."

Saturday saw them lose their sixth match of the season as Bristol City came from behind to beat them at the Bet365 Stadium.

Stoke even took the lead in the fourth minute through Sam Clucas's strike before things went typically wrong, starting with Joe Allen's red card just eight minutes later.

Famara Diedhiou levelled things in the second half before a Tom Edwards own goal completed the turn around and heaped more misery on the Potters.

This weekend sees them to travel to Brentford for what will be another stern test and it will be interesting to see what sort of response comes from Butland and co.

The verdict

These empty soundbites are really becoming more and more meaningless with each passing week.

There is a lot to like about Stoke, in terms of their manager and their squad, but something is clearly not right and the board need to take a closer look to decide what it is.

And that is not just a closer look at those below them but at themselves as well. Is this a problem that is starting higher up? If they have the club's best interests at heart, they will find out.