'That's rubbish' - Tony Pulis told to 'move on' amid claim he was 'cheated' by Man City
Tony Pulis' claim that his Stoke City side were cheated out of the FA Cup by Manchester City in the 2011 final is baseless.
That is the opinion of experienced former Everton, Tottenham and Aston Villa scout, Bryan King, speaking exclusively to Football Insider.
The 68-year-old claimed on Sunday that the Potters should be retrospectively given the FA Cup, which they lost in the final 1-0 courtesy of Yaya Toure's second-half goal.
Several similar claims have been made after Man City were found guilty of 114 breaches of the Premier League's financial rules between 2009 and 2018 and during the subsequent investigation.
Pulis was in charge of Stoke between 2002 and 2005, returning in 2006 and remaining in the dugout for almost seven more years before leaving in May 2013.
His side had beaten Cardiff City, Wolves, Brighton, West Ham and Bolton on their way to the 2011 FA Cup final.
'It's happened, it's gone'
Many have demanded Man City be stripped of their titles won off the back of their financial rule-breaks, but it is unclear how this would take shape.
Even if each trophy was handed to the runner-up in each case, there would surely be no trophy-lift or parade, or at least not one that does not feel empty.
"As for taking all the cups and all the Premier Leagues and all this away - that's rubbish. Rubbish, as far as I'm concerned," King told Football Insider.
"It's happened, it's gone. History. Move on. All this stripping of titles and all that - for me, at the end of the day, there were 11 players against 11 players playing during the season against all these teams.
"Let's take Tony Pulis at Stoke City. He's been saying that Stoke should now receive the FA Cup they lost. On the day, your players weren't good enough to beat their players.
"I don't think any of the players who joined Man City or left Man City would realise that the things that happened or the things that they'd done were illegal."
"I'm fed up of seeing, 'when do we receive our FA Cup?' Stoke City, you know, this kind of stuff. It's a waste of journalistic space," King added.
What did Tony Pulis say?
When Man City beat Stoke in the 2011 FA Cup final, they were yet to win a major trophy under their freely-spending new owners from Abu Dhabi, who had taken over three years earlier.
"We lost, but to a team that have been found guilty of breaking the financial rules set out by the Premier League," Pulis told wrote for BBC Sport.
"In doing so, they did not just beat Stoke in an FA Cup final, they collected a stack of titles and went on to completely dominate English football for more than a decade."
He added: "I don't seriously believe any other trophies and titles will be handed back over either. A points deduction and a massive fine feels far more likely. But I still feel cheated."