Pulis: Potters must beat Toon

Stoke boss Tony Pulis has described Saturday's Premier League clash at home to Newcastle as a must-win game.

This weekend, the Potters turn their attentions from possible FA Cup glory to the battle for league survival.

Stoke reached the semi-finals of the cup for the first time in 39 years courtesy of last weekend's 2-1 win over West Ham and will face Bolton at Wembley next month.

With Manchester United or Manchester City waiting in the final, victory in the semi would almost certainly send Stoke into Europe, but for Pulis the priority remains ensuring they will play in the top flight for a fourth successive season.

The Potters currently sit 12th and have not often been mentioned as potential relegation candidates but their cushion over the bottom three is only three points.

Victory on Saturday would move Stoke onto 37 points and above Newcastle, and Pulis has called on the club's fans to reprise the atmosphere that inspired them last weekend.

He said: "It's very, very important for the football club that we stay focused on the league and we've got a very, very tough game on Saturday against Newcastle. We've got to win it.

"They'll be up for it and what we've got to do is generate the same atmosphere we generated the other day against West Ham, both on the pitch and off the pitch. The support from both sides made the cup tie what it was, and that was a very, very exciting game.

"The supporters have to stay focused on the league. We've had a three-year plan and we're not through it yet. We have to get through it and at the end of the season I'll talk about those three years and why it was so important to get through them.

"Our aim right from the beginning of the season has been to get to 40 points as quickly as we can. That's never changed and that will never change.

"If we can do it in the next two games then brilliant. If not then the next three games, and if we can't do that then hopefully in the next four."

As well as sending a message to Stoke's supporters, Pulis has spent the week drumming into his players the idea that Saturday's game is if anything even more important than the quarter-final against West Ham.

"They were obviously very happy and delighted to achieve something that the club hadn't achieved for over 38 years," he said.

"It's a great feather in their cap but an even greater feather would be to retain Premier League status and to remain in one of the great leagues in the world."

There is a certain irony that, having been tipped for relegation for the last two seasons and survived comfortably, the Potters have slipped into danger largely unnoticed.

Pulis knows full well the danger of complacency, and he is determined any that has slipped into the club will be swiftly dispatched.

He added: "The longer you stay in the Premier League, people - whether it's people around the football club, whether it's people in the dressing room, whether it's people on the terraces - sort of become blase about the situation, and we can't afford to become blase.

"I think people have maybe taken their eye off the ball a little bit, especially with the great cup run. The important thing is we stay focused and get what we've tried to achieve from the first game of the season."

Stoke are likely to be without striker John Carew, who is still struggling with the back problem that forced him out of the cup clash.