Paul Clement sounded like a beaten man. A ninth defeat in 12 Premier League matches, on a day when Stoke City appeared to be there for the taking, leaves Swansea City bottom of the table and prompted their manager to deliver a scathing assessment.

It is a wretched run of results at any level and raises serious questions about how much longer Swansea’s owners are willing to tolerate the sight of the club sliding inexorably towards the Championship. Clement expressed his hope that he would be given more time, yet he also gave the impression that he is as fed up as anyone.

Stoke were obliging opponents in many ways although Swansea never had enough about them to score again after conceding twice in the space of four chaotic first-half minutes. Xherdan Shaqiri and Mame Diouf scored those goals, punishing some abject defending after Wilfried Bony had netted against his former club.

“I believe we’ve gone bottom of the table and I can’t say that we’re unlucky,” Clement said. “We’ve lost 10 games now. It’s not been through misfortune. We deserve to be bottom because we’re not consistent enough through a 90-minute period.”

Leroy Fer was at fault for Stoke’s first goal, with the midfielder carelessly losing possession 30 yards out, and Clement made the point that the defending was not much better prior to the home team’s second, when Swansea dropped far too deep as Peter Crouch flicked on for Diouf to hammer home. “Then, very characteristic of us at this point, mentally we’re not in a good state, you go down having led and we didn’t play well from that point,” he said.

Swansea enjoyed plenty of possession in the second half, but as has been the case throughout the season, it was hard to see them scoring. Bony’s goal – a brilliantly taken first-time volley from Martin Olsson’s cross – was their first since October.

Mame Biram Diouf scores Stoke’s second goal at the bet365 Stadium. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

It says it all that the closest the visitors came to equalising in the second period was when Jack Butland tipped over a header from Ryan Shawcross, the Stoke defender. “It’s the same thing,” Clement said. “We’re a toothless team. Offensively we’re nowhere near good enough, we don’t create enough, we don’t score enough. That’s our biggest issue.”

When it was pointed out to Clement that he had been scathing of his own team, he said: “When I am scathing about my team I am scathing of myself. It is not me pointing the finger and saying: ‘It is his fault’. It is a collective effort. I cannot win without the players. So I am being more self-critical because I have to be better and get more out of this team.”

The key question is whether Clement, who had described this game as a Cup final beforehand, will get the opportunity. “Those kind of things are very much out of the hands of the manager or a coach,” he said.

“That will always be down to the chairman and the ownership to make those decisions if the situation is going in a really bad direction and you can’t see any chance of changing it.

“I believe I can [change it]. I showed last year I am capable of working at this level with 29 points over 19 games. It was a big effort. It is nowhere near as good this season.”

For Stoke, who were relieved to pick up their second victory in eight matches, the league table makes for much better reading now that they are up to 13th position. Shaqiri took his goal well following a lovely through ball from midfielder Joe Allen and the dangerous Diouf was close to adding a third when he headed the ball wide in the second half.

“It would have been very easy to feel sorry for ourselves [after Bony’s goal],” Mark Hughes, Stoke’s manager, said. “But I didn’t see any evidence of that.”