Pulis defends squad selection

Stoke City boss Tony Pulis has defended his squad selection following his side’s elimination from the Europa League at the hands of Valencia.

The Potters went down 1-0 at Mestalla, bowing out of the competition 2-0 on aggregate. Pulis made nine changes to the side which beat Crawley 2-0 in the FA Cup at the weekend, with Rory Delap and Dean Whitehead the only survivors.

He also named just four substitutes, with big names such as Peter Crouch and Matthew Etherington not even travelling to Spain, but Pulis said he would not pay any attention to the media criticism of his tactics.

Pulis told ESPN: “I don’t take any notice of people who don’t know what’s going on, that’s been the European squad and those people (tonight) have played more European games than the people have back home, but that’s the press, that’s the media.”

“You have to accept that they want to write stuff and sometimes they want to write negative stuff. But it doesn’t affect us, they have a job to do, let them get on with their job.”

Despite the defeat, the Stoke manager remained upbeat about his side’s performance and says they just lacked the touch of luck needed to progress to the last 16 of the Europa League.

“The players have come here and had a go tonight,” he said. “We needed a bit of luck and score the first goal and it didn’t come.”

“I thought we created some really, really good chances in the first-half and we just needed that little bit of luck for that one to hit the back of the net, it’d have been a different game then.”

Just past the half hour mark in the game, Diego Arismendi was crowded out on the edge of the Valencia penalty area, with the referee turning down the visitors’ appeals for a free-kick.

Pulis says he thought his team should have been awarded a foul and suggested that home advantage helped Valencia.

“We thought it was a blatant free-kick, he (the referee) doesn’t give it, then they go down the other end and score,” Pulis said.

“There were a few contentious decision again, but you ride them when you’re away from home, you have to accept them.”