Pulis: Maresca must instil a siege mentality at Manchester City after guilty verdict
Tony Pulis said Enzo Maresca will demand a siege mentality from Manchester City after the club were found guilty of breaking Premier League financial rules, with the side preparing to travel to Liverpool on Sunday as the Premier League returns this weekend.
Pulis warned that City will face intense hostility in the immediate fixtures, and noted players will be returning from international duty straight into an off-field fight that has become a media frenzy. "No-one is going to like us, but we won't care," he said, arguing both squad and supporters should adopt an attitude of proving detractors wrong. He added the spotlight for the returning weekend will be on Anfield.
Outlining what he would demand as manager, Pulis said he would first reassure players the club would continue to defend its position and the positions of players, staff and supporters. "I loved being the underdog and I loved to prove people wrong, and that is what I would demand now - a siege mentality from my squad and supporters alike to prove to people that, irrespective of what is happening off the pitch, on the field and the terraces we respect our club and we are going to fight on," he said.
Pulis insisted players should concentrate on their core task of winning matches and that distractions off the field must not be tolerated. "No excuses about what is happening off the field would be tolerated, and that would be my final word on the matter," he said, framing match focus as the immediate managerial priority.
Addressing wider consequences, Pulis warned that if the verdict is upheld it "will come at a heavy cost to the club and its reputation" and argued there should be greater scrutiny of the fairness of Financial Fair Play rules given the scale of modern investment in top-level football. "I feel there needs to be more attention paid to all of these rules, and their fairness, because professional football at the top level is now dominated by massive financial investment," he said.
Pulis highlighted transfer-market scale and youth recruitment practices as areas connected to the FFP debate, noting: "Even if you just consider player transfers, it's not unusual for around a billion pounds to be exchanged between clubs in England and around the world during each transfer window. While individual players at the top level are being bought and sold for more than £100m, smaller academies are being plundered by the bigger clubs. They can hoover up the best young players for much smaller 'compensation' fees, enabling them to polish them up and sell them on later for much more - without any Financial Fair Play rules to regulate how much they profit." He questioned whether that approach is good for the game or the players.
Reflecting on club ownership and competitive balance, Pulis said: "The money in our game today is extraordinary and today massive corporations, billionaires and even countries are buying our clubs and want to invest more and more into the product but are not able to. Gone are the days of local business owners buying their local clubs. In the Premier League, Tony Bloom at Brighton and Matthew Benham at Brentford are the last men standing and, in the Championship, the Coates family at Stoke City and Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough are among the few to have had a taste of the top flight." He contrasted that with the recent success of smaller clubs, adding: "At the moment all the negative media attention is on what Manchester City have done wrong but the likes of Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford have achieved success by being smart, without the 'big club' tag. It's great to see, but surely the rules need to reward all clubs for being smart. Doing the right thing should give everyone the chance to compete at the highest level."
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan, and City now face Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday as the Premier League resumes, a fixture Pulis says will be the immediate test for Maresca's squad and any club-led call for unity.
