Stoke City boss Alex Neil has urged his side to continue their good form and show consistency by beating Blackburn Rovers.

The Potters were underperforming before the last international break after one win in eight but they have since gone five games unbeaten. That's included victories over Leeds United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough.

Jon Dahl Tomasson's Rovers are the next side travelling to the Bet365 Stadium this weekend in a match between two sides slightly adrift but hoping to punch towards the play-off places.

Neil has been pleased by the Potters' recent run but conceded that five games is not enough to truly get buy-in from supporters. He wants to see a more extended run of positive form, continuing after the international break against Rovers.

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“I am really pleased with how things have been going," Neil said. "There's now an element of consistency about our game.

“The good thing is, even if in one or two matches we haven't been as free-flowing going forward, we're still very resolute at the back, and I think any successful team is built on being nice and solid.

“Obviously scoring goals and being creative is arguably the hardest part of the game, getting players in that can score you goals or find that killer pass when you need it.

“But I think we have been excellent in these games because they have been against teams that have either been challenging up at the top end of the table or they've been some of the considerably bigger clubs in the league.

“We need to be consistent in that we want to be hard to play against, hard to beat, but we also need to put a good run of games together where we can be continually picking points up.

“The biggest thing for me is we need to break that sort of glass ceiling that we've had here for the last five or six years in not operating in the top half of the table, so that is my main aim, to get us into the top half and try to sustain being in the top half for large periods of the season.

“And obviously, like I say, if you are within touching distance of those play off positions at the end of January, that's when the season really kicks in.”