Stoke City chairman Peter Coates is handing manager Tony Pulis a bumper £35 million transfer kitty.

"We know we will have to compete and we will have to bring in new players and we know we need new players to battle in this division," explained Coates.

"Tony Pulis has a big job to find more players and the trick is bringing better players than we have - which is easy to say but harder to do.

"We've now got about £35m knocking about which we didn't have before and that makes your wage bill go up because you have to have a competitive wage bill and we are working on all the financial side of things at the moment."