TONY PULIS hailed summer-signing Michael Kightly as a great acquisition for the Club . . . but then challenged his team-mates to make more of their goalscoring opportunities after Stoke City had to settle for a draw in their opening Barclays Premier League fixture of the 2012-13 campaign at newly-promoted Reading.
Kightly, who scored with his very first touch for the club in the pre-season game against Sp Vgg Greuther Furth last week, marked his Premier League debut for the club by firing them in front at the Madejski Stadium.
But much to Pulis’ frustration, City had to settle for a point after Adam Le Fondre’s last-minute penalty, their seventh draw in the last eleven Premier League outings and their fifth successive 1-1 draw in the past fortnight.
City’s manager was nevertheless full of praise for Kightly who completed his move from Wolverhampton Wanderers for an undisclosed fee early last week, saying: “I really think he will be a great acquisition for us.
“He had a great game, even though he tired a little bit right at the end of the game which is why we decided to take him off.
“He has the ability to score goals, as he showed today. He comes in off the line and looks for pockets inside the danger zone.”
Pulis added: “He is always on the move and I am so pleased he scored today. We had wide players who didn’t really score last season but Kights has come in and put pressure on them from the word go which is what we want.
“We need forward to score goals and for us our wide players are forwards. The extra competition can only help us this season.”
Pulis was, however, disappointed that City didn’t make the most of other opportunities which they created at the Madejski Stadium.
“I was disappointed because on a number of occasions we got in behind them, but we let ourselves down with the final delivery,” he said.
“There were opportunitiess there again today and we should have been two or three up. We shouldn’t have been waiting for them to have that one opportunity to draw level. We should have been out of sight by then.
“I have looked at DVDs from last season and we should be scoring a lot more goals. We get in the positions, but then we just aren’t putting them away. We should have doubled our goal tally last season and it was the same today.”