Norwich City manager Paul Lambert has come to the defence of Stoke City s physical approach ahead of their English Premier League clash.
The freshly promoted Canaries began their return to the top flight with a come-from-behind draw at Wigan last Saturday, and have their first home game of the 2011/12 campaign against Stoke on Sunday.
Tony Pulis Stoke have gone from a club in Norwich s position at the start of the 2008/09 season to a FA Cup finalist and a Europa League competitor, yet the Potters have also continually been criticised for an uncompromising approach to their football.
New Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas was the latest to question Stoke s physicality after last Sunday s 0-0 stalemate, but Lambert has leapt to the defence of Pulis and his men.
I watched Stoke last Sunday and I thought they were excellent and they got a terrific result (in a 1-0 win over FC Thun in the Europa League) so it s a really hard game for us, former Celtic midfielder Lambert said.
This is a totally different game to Wigan, as I said. I think Stoke get wrongly accused of being over physical, but you make no apologies for it they win more games than not.
They can also play as well they re into Europe, reached the FA Cup final so that shows you the magnitude of the task we ve got. But we re at home and we have to go and try and win.
I watched them against Chelsea and I thought they were excellent for an hour anyway, with Chelsea being one of the favourites to win the league. But I thought they were a handful, Stoke, that s for sure they re not just an over-physical side, they play the game as well.
Lambert could hand new defensive signing Daniel Ayala a debut in the match, and said the new Liverpool already fits into the group .
He also backed his side to continue their acclimatisation to their top-flight status.
It s really, really hard a real tough league that s for sure, Lambert said.
We were under pressure for spells of the game at Wigan but we did very well to come back from a goal down. I watched the goals from the QPR game and they were unlucky in the tail end of the half and Manchester City were fantastic against Swansea City, but the three teams that have come up have done really well to get up here in the first place.
