Tony Pulis refuses to risk Stoke City’s finances by breaking bank for West Ham’s Carlton Cole

Tony Pulis – Stoke City, (Getty Images)

Related Links

Teams

Players

Tony Pulis has revealed he is willing to give up the chase for the signature of Carlton Cole for the sake of the club’s financial security.

Stoke appeared to be hot favourites to sign the 27-year-old England international after a £6 million fee had been agreed with West Ham, yet talks have since broke down due to Cole’s reported demands of £45,000 a week.

Pulis has no complaints about Stoke’s reluctance to accept Cole’s demands, and insists he is not prepared to risk the club’s financial health.

“We have spoken as a board and management team, and it is very important we try to keep to a level,” Pulis told The Sentinel.

“We have overachieved enormously over four years and we know that.

“What we don’t want to do is chase and chase and then put ourselves in the position where, if it went wrong, the football club would be in a bad state financially. That will not happen at Stoke City.”

Stoke are preparing themselves for their first involvement in a major European competition in 37 years, having drawn Hajduk Split in the Europa League qualifiers following their FA Cup run last season, and Pulis is well aware of the task ahead for his team if they are to do well in the competition.

He continued: “It is a very difficult competition because to get through to the final we would have had to play 18 games – nearly half the amount of our Premier League matches.

“To do that you have to have a very strong squad and quality in depth. Whether we have that at the moment I am not sure, but I want to win every game.”