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Crystal Palace boss Sam Allardyce said his players had an urgent need to start registering positive results as their relegation worries grew after a 1-0 defeat at Stoke. In a game low on entertainment, Joe Allen's 67th-minute strike condemned second-bottom Palace to their sixth defeat in eight Premier League matches under Allardyce. The visitors, who had been looking to bounce back from their humiliating 4-0 home loss to Sunderland last weekend, remain level on 19 points with them. They are two points adrift of 17th-placed Swansea and 16th-placed Leicester, whose game in hand comes when they face each other at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday. Allardyce said: "I wasn't too disappointed with the performance, but at the end of the day we have still got no points. "It's very apparent that if we don't start turning points in from the games we play it's going to get harder and harder as every game ticks by. "I think we deserved a point today with the way we played. But of course, unfortunately the big problem is -- and the bottom line is -- there is no result again. "It's another defeat and it's ever ongoing and has gone on far too long, not just with me but before I came. It's continued on and I've got to stop it and I've got to stop it quick." Allardyce said Palace had to "break the mould" of losing and use the pressure they faced to galvanise them into producing positive results. "It is a long time the club has been in this position, and obviously I was aware of that," he said. "I was hoping I was going to turn it around a lot quicker but I haven't managed to do that yet. "So I'll continue to work hard and try to do that as quickly as possible. Hopefully that will be in our next game, which is in two weeks' time." The goal was a rare moment of quality as Marko Arnautovic's fine ball forward was held up well by Ramadan Sobhi, who then provided the tee-up from which Allen drilled into the corner of the net. Stoke are up two places to ninth, and boss Mark Hughes said: "It was an important win for us. "It was a difficult game. We created some really good opportunities in the first half but didn't take them and the longer it goes on, you get a little bit anxious maybe that you might not get the breakthrough. But thankfully it came with a great goal to win the game. "We restricted them to very few clear-cut chances. All in all it was very satisfying. "It wasn't the greatest game in the world to be honest, and we played a lot better in recent weeks, but there was a lot of qualities to our play today that I was really pleased with."
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