Stoke City FC

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• Manager:Tony Pulis

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Deadline-day dealing pleases Pulis

01 Sep 2010 - 11:11:37

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Tony Pulis is pleased he was able to persuade Iceland international Eidur Gudjohnsen to join Stoke City on a season-long loan.

The 31-year-old moves to the Britannia Stadium from AS Monaco while, on a busy transfer deadline day for the Potters, Jermaine Pennant, Marc Wilson and Salif Diao were also snapped up.

Liam Lawrence and Dave Kitson moved to Portsmouth as part of the Wilson deal which was believed to be worth just over £4.5million.

"Eidur is a class player," Pulis told the Sentinel. "He's someone with real European pedigree at clubs like Barcelona and Chelsea. It's a deal we've been working on for a while and one we were trying to keep quiet.

"We spent a lot of time convincing him to come here, so we're obviously delighted he's decided to join us.

"I spoke to Harry Redknapp about him because he had him on loan at Tottenham last season. He thought he was a top player and if things had been different at Tottenham he would have taken him back.

"I've spoken to others about him and they say he's a top lad behind the scenes and he's still got plenty left in the tank. It should be a real coup for this football club.

"And we can say the same about Jermaine. This was another one we were keeping quiet because we didn't want others getting involved. I spoke to his agent two days into pre-season, so it wasn't as last minute as people might think.

"If you looked at last season's team, every supporter would have said it lacked goals more than anything. We seriously had to look at our goal-scoring capabilities and hopefully we've done that now.

"It's taken us a while to get them in and that's a disappointment because you want to be working with these players, but we will be patient with them and hopefully they have been worth the wait.

"This is a massive third year in the Premier League for us and a difficult one because it's hard to attract the players you need to take you to the next level.

"But if we can get through this season we will be fine, I'm convinced of that, and these players have given us a great chance of doing that. Now we just have to get them as competitive and as focused as you want them to be."