Angry Pulis makes his point after Baggies snatch injury-time draw at West Ham
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 stoppage-time 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”.
‘So it’s absolutely disgraceful whoever has put that out.’
West Ham manager Slaven Bilic was angry but for very different reasons. He had watched his side fall behind to Nacer
Chadli’s sixth-minute goal, equalise through Sofiane Feghouli and then seemingly win the game when Manuel Lanzini scored a 25-yard effort with four minutes remaining.
Then Jonny Evans leapt high to head home 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 No2, 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.