Pulis feature

[devsad]

Don't know if it's been posted before, but this is from the football league website:

After an excellent three-month run and a transfer window spending spree, Stoke City manager Tony Pulis is looking for his team to push on for promotion to the Premiership.
The Potters, who have lost just once in their last 14 League matches, are currently fourth in the Championship table and only two points off the automatic promotion places. And after spending around £4million to bolster his squad during January, Pulis is more than happy with his options as he leads his team into the final third of the season
The experienced manager will not, however, make any promotional statements. "I've been in the game too long to say we'll do this, that or the other," says Pulis. We've done smashing so far," he adds, "and I'm certainly pleased with the way things have gone of late and the signings we've been able to make in January. But we've now got a 16-game season ahead of us and we've got to glean as many points as we possibly can in a very competitive division.
One thing in our favour could be the fact that we always look capable of scoring goals - and our goal difference is better than practically anybody's apart from West Brom. We're in a game of results though, and as a manager I know I'm can be three results from being a hero or three results from being a villain." Pulis was cast as the villain by some doubting Stoke fans when, during the close season, several players were sold without immediate replacements being brought in.But the manager has a simple explanation for that situation - and he has more than adequately filled the perceived gaps in the meanwhile. He says: "We sold players for a total of around £4.5 million in the summer and I was criticised for not spending on replacements straight away. But the players simply weren't there, so I had to bide my time and it paid off because we got the signings I wanted in the January window." Four of the new men - Leon Cort, Danny Pugh, Ryan Shawcross and Andy Griffin - had previously been on loan at Stoke so Pulis knew exactly what he was getting. That's a different situation to last season, when the Stoke boss was The Loan Arranger without being able to convert loanees into permanent signings. This time around, with rather more cash at his disposal, he has succeeded in doing just that - and the Potters could be set to benefit in the best possible style.