Tony Pulis insists his players can't afford to get over-confident as the race for the Premier League hots up.

Today's 1-1 draw against Hull City ensured the Potters remain five points ahead of seventh place, but the City boss says other sides are a major threat.

Saying: "We can't underestimate who we are playing against. Hull had 21,000 people there on Sunday.

"They have players like Jay-Jay Okocha, Henrik Pedersen and Dean Marney who can't even get in to the starting eleven.

"We have done fantastically well to get to where we are, but there are a lot of sides in this division, like ourselves, who believe they can get into the Premiership."

Pulis believes the outcome would have been very different had the Potters doubled their advantage shortly before half time.

"They passed the ball around well today, but they didn't really test Simmo too much.

"If we had got another one after we had scored, which maybe we should have done, then it would have been a different game.

"We are five points ahead of seventh place now and that is a fantastic achievement for this club."

Vincent Pericard looked to have been hacked down inside the penalty area just two minutes from time, but the referee waved play on, much to the City bosses disbelief.

"It should have been a penalty," insists Pulis.

"It was more of a penalty than the one Plymouth were awarded against us. We will look at the video of the incident, but I think it was a penalty."

The Potters were dealt a blow ahead of the match with the news that Ricardo Fuller was absent due to a family bereavement.

And Pulis says he would never have stopped City's top scorer travelling back home to attend his grandmother's funeral.

"Ric's grandmother past away and she was the one who brought him up as a youngster.

"He is back in Jamaica at her funeral and he went with all of our condolences.

"There is no way in a million years I would have stopped Ric from going because it is much more important than anything we are trying to achieve."