Tony Pulis warns angry West Brom supporters they will struggle to find a better manager than him

Tony Pulis has warned angry West Bromwich Albion supporters demanding his head that they will struggle to find a better head coach to replace him.

Pulis admitted he would not be surprised to be sacked with fans in open revolt ahead of the meeting with Chelsea on Saturday.

But in a pre-match media conference that combined defiance and bullishness about his record with open acceptance of his possible fate, the Welshman warned his detractors to be careful what they wish for.

“If I left tomorrow I'd put my record on the table and put it in front of anybody and see what they think of what I've done here in three years,” said the 59-year-old when asked to compare his credentials with possible replacements.

“We're on a bad run and everything is determined by the next game.

“No one ever looks back and sees (when I arrived) there was Georgios Samaras, Silvestre Varela, Sebastien Pocognoli, Cristian Gamboa - 11 players were bought that summer and not one made a profit. I inherited those players and we finished 13th that year.”

For Pulis, Albion’s current run of two wins from 20 Premier League games dating back to last season is his worst as a manager since 2004, when a seven-game winless streak helped bring about the end of his first spell at Stoke.

West Brom’s Chinese owner Lai Guochuan has remained steadfastly behind Pulis through previous, more minor grumbles from supporters, but with a large section of the fanbase now in open revolt and Lai due in town to see the Chelsea game, there is a sense that a heavy defeat could lead to a change.

If so, Pulis is remaining philosophical about his life but defiant in the face of his critics.

“I’m an experienced person and not a young boy,” he said. “At times, if you’re a young man and you’re fighting through something you’re never going to get through, then you don’t see anything else. But I know the game, I know the score.

“I will speak to the Chinese, I’ll speak to John (Williams, the chairman) I’ll get a feeling from them. The most important thing is the football club. This football club will be here long after I’ve left.

“It’s not about Tony Pulis it’s about the football club and the football team and everything that surrounds it. The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself. I've got an inbred strength that I look at other things and situations in life.

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“This pressure in my job; compare that to other pressures people are under. I came from a big family in south Wales and my father was under pressure to put food on the table. That’s real pressure, because we could eat!

“People say the football's been boring, this that and the other, but the last two games at The Hawthorns have seen nine games scored. People tell me we're this that and the other, but look at the league, there are four or five teams who have scored fewer goals than us.”

Pulis’s hopes of a win that could silence calls for his departure have been hampered by the loss of Nacer Chadli, who suffered a hip injury while on international duty with Belgium and will be sidelined until Christmas.

James Morrison remains out with an Achilles injury but Oliver Burke could figure after recovering from a hamstring problem.

“I’m really disappointed, but what has happened is the expectations have gone through the roof,” he said. “This club has fought relegation battles to the last days. They’ve had supporters carrying managers round the pitch on the last game of the season because of results going for them and kept them up.

“In the three years I’ve been here this football club has been nowhere near getting relegated. We are one win off where we were last year when we ended up being in eighth position more than anywhere else.

“So it’s about rolling with it and working with it and if there comes a time when everybody thinks this is not going to happen, then fine. I’m big enough, old enough and have been round the block enough to know that that’s the cut-off time.”