Joe Hart has admitted that Stoke City "deserved" to beat Manchester City at the Britannia Stadium in the Premier League.
Marko Arnautovic scored twice inside the opening 15 minutes against the league leaders, securing a 2-0 win for Mark Hughes's side.
"It was a disappointing start and we could not recover from it. We didn't play well today. A few of the lads are feeling it from the games we are playing but that is not an excuse. We need to put in at least a 7/10 performance every game and we are not doing that," BBC Sport quotes the goalkeeper as saying.
"Vincent Kompany is a massively important part of our squad but we have a good squad here. After a 2-0 loss it is easy to say, but we will stick together as a squad. Conditions were tough but that's English football.
"Nobody was able to walk off the pitch with an excuse, both teams played on it and Stoke deserved to beat us today. We can't accept how we played today."
City stay top in the table following the loss, but could slip to fourth depending on other results.
Sian Cowper
