Stoke City's Matthew Etherington believes that the Europa League fixture calendar is partly to blame for the Potters' recent lack of form in the Premier League.

Tony Pulis's side are twelfth in the league table, three points above the drop zone.

The winger thinks that the travel demands in Europa are proving a problem for the Potters side.

"Playing in Europe is not helping, I'm not going to lie," talkSPORT quotes Etherington as saying. "We didn't get back from Israel until Friday night and then we played Bolton on the Sunday, so there's a lot of travelling involved.

"We're delighted to be in it though, we're top of the group at the minute and we want to go as far as we can in the competition.

"We've got to get used to [playing in Europe] sooner rather than later because we could end up in a bit of trouble in the league."

Stoke take on Queens Park Rangers at the Britannia Stadium this Saturday.