Tony Pulis won't walk away from West Brom without lucrative offer, say shareholders
Albion’s shareholders don’t expect head coach Tony Pulis to walk away from the club without another offer, having been told he was happy with discussions in China.
Forty members of Shareholders For Albion, a group who represent the club’s 432 minor shareholders, met with chief executive Martin Goodman and finance director Peter Band last week after Pulis and the board returned from seeing owner Guochuan Lai in Guangzhou.
According to The Times, the Welshman is considering his future as Albion head coach because of criticism from fans.
But Neil Reynolds, chairman of S4A, only expects him to leave if another club tempts him away with much better pay.
“We were told all parties, including Pulis, were happy with the meeting in China,” said Reynolds. “My understanding is he won’t walk out, but if somebody came in with an attractive offer, he’d go.”
Albion pay Pulis a competitive salary believed to be £2million a year, and don’t predict anyone swooping in with a more lucrative offer.
Pulis is contracted until the end of next season but chairman John Williams plans to sit down with him at the end of the summer and discuss terms of a fresh deal.
Reynolds says Pulis has been promised a ‘substantial’ transfer kitty this summer, and the S4A chairman hopes it brings about a change on the pitch.
“It needs either a change of a manager or a change of style," he said. "We hope that if he is backed in the summer, he would be a bit more adventurous and provide some more entertainment.”
Season ticket sales started promisingly this year thanks to a new early bird offering from Goodman that saw a five per cent reduction in prices, but Reynolds said: “I doubt they will have more season ticket holders than last year (when there were roughly 16,000).
“If Pulis did go I’d expect there would be a surge in season ticket sales. That’s my personal view.”
Despite reservations about Pulis, the shareholders were impressed with Goodman, who joined the club at the start of 2017, and Band, who has been finance director for nearly two years.
“They appear to be good, solid people, and open and frank as they can be to us,” he said. “They give you confidence that the club will be run in a correct way.
"As for the owner, we haven’t been able to speak to him because of the distance and the language barrier.”
