Jack Butland has urged his Stoke City teammates to improve their performances if they are to turn around a poor start to the season.
The Potters have yet to win a game this campaign in five attempts, leaving them inside the Premier League's bottom three.
Butland, who produced a man-of-the-match display in Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Arsenal, admits that more needs to be done if his side are to build on last season's ninth-place finish.
"Again it's very disappointing," he is quoted as saying by the Stoke Sentinel. "I've said before we're a better side than we're showing. We're not giving ourselves a chance to compete in games, giving the opposition too much respect and they're causing us problems.
"We've got to start getting out of the blocks quicker. We've got to compete, we've got to be better. We've got lots to work on, definitely, but it's better for it to happen now so we can address things and start to pick up points.
"We've got far too many good players in the squad to worry - but where we are at now is not good enough in terms of performances. You've got to look in the mirror, look at our own performances and accept that what we've done so far is not good enough. Then we can kick on from there."
Stoke return to action next weekend when they play host to high-flying Leicester City.
