Furious Pulis blasts Stoke over ‘leak of private calls’
Disgrace to leak my private ‘loser’ call
TONY PULIS stepped up his bitter feud with Mark Hughes after his West Bromwich side grabbed a draw in the dying seconds against West Ham, branding the Stoke City manager’s conduct ‘disgraceful’.
On the eve of the match, Hughes revealed Pulis left a voicemail on Stoke captain Ryan Shawcross’s mobile phone calling him a ‘loser’.
That was in response to Shawcross claiming ‘someone from West Brom’s side must have been speaking to the newspapers’ regarding revelations about Saido Berahino’s drugs ban earlier this season.
Berahino joined Stoke from West Brom for £12million last month, before his eight-week ban had been made public.
And in a lengthy rant after Gareth McAuley had scored a stoppagetime equaliser to earn a point, Pulis hit back at Hughes. ‘It’s absolutely disgraceful,’ he said. ‘The call I made is a private phone call between me and Shawcross. And then, yes, I did mention losers, but I said about people with innuendos making allegations that weren’t true.
‘And when you lose a game you can still be a winner by taking it on the chin and getting on with it. I did use the word loser but I meant it in that way and I actually said, “Ryan, you’ve never been that”.
‘Then it was spun in a horrible way and I have to say, Stoke-on-Trent, forget about the football club, or the people at the football club and the supporters, Stoke-on-Trent is a wonderful place.
‘I was there for 10 years and I have raised millions of pounds for the Donna Louise (children’s hospice), which is in Stoke-on-Trent. I’ve carried the Olympic Torch through Stoke-on-Trent.
‘I took Stoke from the Championship to the Preemiership. I took them to an FA Cup final and to Europe. Do you think I’m going to criticise that area and those people, who have been wonderful for me?
‘So it’s absolutely dissgraceful whoever has put that out. I don’t usually respond spond to bait, but I am disgusted that from a few days before we played Stoke (February 4), the innuendos coming out about Berahino, West Brom and myself and then leading up to this.’ We West Ham manager Slaven Bil Bilic was angry but for very different reasons. v He had watched his side fall behind to Nacer Chadli’s sixth-minute goal, equalise through S Sofiane Feghouli and th then seemingly win the gam game when Manuel Lanzini scoreds a 25-yard effort with fou four minutes remaining. Then Jonny Evans leapt high to meet Chris Brunt’s corner and the ball cannoned in off McAuley in the fourth minute of added time. Bilic picked up a television microphone and hurled it to the ground. The Croatian then aimed a barrage of expletives at referee Michael Oliver, resulting in him being banished to the stands where his No 2, Nicola Jurcevic, was already sitting for berating an assistant in the first half.
‘There were four or five decisions and all of them went against us,’ moaned Bilic. ‘It’s building up your frustration, you’re not happy, then at the end you don’t understand it. It’s hard to get over that.’
Bilic felt Feghouli had been fouled by Brunt before Chadli nutmegged Cheikhou Kouyate and Darren Randolph to score. He also believed Feghouli had a ‘goal’ wrongly ruled out for offside. pushedWhen a up, ball eHfwas but weakly Craig cleared Dawson to Lanzini in the first half, West Brom remained sprawled in the six-yard box, injured. Lanzini picked out Feghouli with a pass and he helped the ball into the goal, but the flag went up. It appeared that Dawson had played him onside and players from both sides surrounded referee Oliver, but replays showed that Feghouli was still played offside by goalkeeper Ben Foster.
‘The throw-in that led to their equalising goal, it was our throw-in,’ Bilic added. ‘Then the throw-in was taken 10 yards in front and the ref is telling the player to come back, but no, they take it from there.
‘That bunch of players at a corner after that, I expected to get a foul. It’s too much for one game to be on the wrong end of every decision.’