"But I still feel cheated." Tony Pulis used his BBC column to turn Manchester City's guilty verdict into a Stoke City grievance, saying the 2011 FA Cup final now feels tainted in hindsight. Stoke lost 1-0 to City at Wembley in that final, and Pulis says the club's success from 2009 to 2018 now looks different after the finding.
Stoke's 2011 final under new light
Pulis' complaint is emotional first and technical second. His point is that Stoke's biggest day, the one where smaller clubs and their fans pray for a breakthrough, ended against a side later found guilty of the majority of the 115 rules breaches they were accused of.
"This was our day, that day that many smaller clubs and their fans pray for," he wrote. He also asked, "When do we get our FA Cup?" The line is not about a formal claim on the trophy, but about how the final feels to him after the verdict.
The size of City's era
City's scale in the years after that final is part of why Pulis' point lands so hard. They finished second in the Premier League in 2025 and scored 77 league goals, a reminder of how far the club moved beyond the era he is talking about.
Pulis also said Yaya Toure cost more than Stoke's entire starting 11 when City signed him from Barcelona in 2010, and that he earned 10 times what Stoke were paying any of their players. Those details are his way of showing why the gap felt so wide even before the verdict.
Pulis has not said Stoke should receive the FA Cup, and that is not the issue here. His argument is narrower, and more personal, because the loss at Wembley now sits alongside a finding that changes how the whole period is read. City are expected to appeal, so the wider case is far from over, but Pulis has made clear how it looks from Stoke's side right now.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
