By Nick Price at the Britannia Stadium
28 Feb 2011 23:52:00
Tony Pulis – Stoke City, (Getty Images)
Related Links
Teams
Players
Stoke City boss Tony Pulis was left bewildered by the officials who allowed Carlos Vela‘s late equaliser to stand for West Brom and a post-match scuffle that marred the game.
There appeared to be one instance of offside before the ball was whipped into the Mexican striker, who was himself beyond the last man and in clear line of sight from the assistant referee.
Asked whether there was any doubt over the goal, he told reporters: “He’s offside – it’s a poor decision, a very,very poor decision by the linesman who is looking straight at it.
“You’ve seen it yourselves, but we have to accept it and have to get on with it.”
The match also threatened to be overshadowed not only by the dubious nature of West Brom’s equaliser, but by a scuffle in the tunnel apparently instigated by Jonas Olsson smashing a panoramic picture of the Britannia Stadium.
“It’s very, very disappointing when that happens,” he explained, “but I’ll speak to Roy [Hodgson] now and expect that Roy will sort it out with the kid.”
But the Welsh boss rejected claims that the Swedish defender had any reason to lash out after allegedly being snubbed of a handshake from an unnamed Stoke player and denied there was any altercation previous to the outburst.
He said: “If you can’t control yourself by smashing someone else’s property because someone doesn’t shake your hand, then I don’t see that as an excuse. It’s property paid for by this club, and he has no right to break that.”
Stoke had taken a second-half lead in a scrappy game through a Rory Delap header, but the Potters boss was left frustrated as his side failed to up their game and eventually succumbed to a solitary point.
He added: “I thought we were poor tonight, we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we can play.
“When we scored the goal we expect the team to take it on and pick it up and we didn’t, but to be fair to West Brom in the last 20 minutes it looked like West Brom were going to be the team that were going to go on and win it.”
Jermaine Pennant, who had been Stoke’s brightest outfield player and set-up Delap’s goal, was withdrawn with more than 10 minutes remaining and Pulis revealed that it was a precautionary substitution with Matthew Etherington also struggling for fitness.
“He thought he’d hurt his hamstring,” he said, “and with Matty hurt as well we don’t want to take any risks, especially with the games we’ve got coming up.
“I thought Matty was very tentative when he came on. It’s about getting him through that little bit of confidence with his back.
“But having said that I thought there were 8 or 9 other players who were very tentative out there as well.”
Asked whether he could explain his side’s lacklustre display, the Welsh boss was philosophical.
He continued: “The reason was they’re human beings – they’re not programmed. You hope they’re going to turn up every week, but they’re human.”
