Potters spending spree ruled out

Stoke chairman Peter Coates has ruled out a spending spree and has reiterated that players will have to be shipped out first.

The Potters spent £20million on new players last summer with Peter Crouch, Cameron Jerome and Wilson Palacios all arriving at the club but Coates says the same will not be happening this year. Boss Tony Pulis has been linked with the likes of Matt Jarvis and Steven Fletcher, two players that come with a big price tag, but such signings are unlikely to happen unless players are sold. Jerome and Kenwyne Jones are the two most obvious players that could move on and Coates says the squad needs to be trimmed down. "Are we going to spend like we did last year? Coates said. "We can't afford to, and neither can any other club our size. You can only have a squad of a certain size, otherwise they are all standing on the sidelines. "What's clever about that? So you only want a squad of a certain size and ours is already self-evidently too big. "It's the same for other clubs. Arsene Wenger is saying he has to get players out at Arsenal before he can get them in. We are no different. "What we want is the best 25 players we can get, but that's easy to say."