Stoke City suffered a £4 million loss in winning promotion to the Premiership last season.

Figures for the 2007/08 season show Stoke's income leapt by more than £3m to a record total of £11.202m - but operating expenses also rocketed from £12m to £21.5m to account for their annual loss.

Stoke's wage bill also jumped by more than £4.5m to nearly £11m for playing and non-playing staff.

But transfer activity was transformed from a slight loss in 2006/07 to a profit of £1.327m in 2007/08 following the departures of Danny Higginbotham, Carl Hoefkens and Darel Russell.

Potters chairman Peter Coates told The Sentinel: "The primary reason for the substantial increase in operating expenses was a major increase in the club's wage bill to give Tony (Pulis) a competitive team in order to give us a chance of promotion.

"I have supported the club for a long time and seen many highs and lows, but May 4, 2008 (the day promotion was sealed) was my happiest moment supporting Stoke City."

He continued: "As soon as we gained promotion we started planning for the substantial change that being a Premier League club means.

"Our new objective, above all others, is to retain our Premier League status. To this end, we had a busy summer in which we purchased 10 new players at a combined cost of over £22m.

"We have started the season well which, again, is a great credit to Tony Pulis and the players.

It will be a hard season and there will be times when we will have difficult periods.

"The support the team have received during games has been phenomenal, even when games have been going against us.

"I know how important this has been in gaining us points and thank all of our supporters for this. If we can continue this throughout the season it really will give us a chance."