Roberto Martinez has challenged his Everton players to bounce back from last week's bruising defeat to Southampton by beating Stoke City on Friday.

The Toffees lost 3-0 at St Mary's in a result that Martinez said "hurt" his troops, who sit 10th in the Premier League table.

Everton have only picked up back-to-back league wins on one occasion this season, and the Spaniard hopes that beating the Potters can provide a platform upon which consistency can be built.

"We haven't been able to be consistent with our results in the league," he told reporters. "It was the first time in the aspect of our performance at Southampton that we let ourselves down.

"We need to learn from it. We're focused on trying to get a bit of consistency on our results in the league. We're all hurt when you get a result like that. You feel that we could have done a lot better. Maybe we could have done a lot better in certain aspects of our performance.

"We never shy away from the responsibility. We want to get results on a consistent basis."

Martinez guided the Merseysiders to a fifth-place finish last season.