Stoke City manager Tony Pulis believes Eidur Gudjohnsen can play a key part in the Potters' season.

Pulis snapped up the Iceland international on deadline day as well as Marc Wilson, Jermaine Pennant and Salif Diao and was pleased with his late transfer business.

He said:"If the new players work as hard as the rest of the players do, with that little bit of extra quality they have, you hope it will make us a better team.

"Over the next 12 days Eidur will do a mini pre-season with Salif and hopefully be ready for Aston Villa (on September 13).

"He is a fantastic player and will add that bit of extra quality we want.

"We paid £1.5million for Wilson, plus the two other players (Liam Lawrence and Dave Kitson) going that way, so we think that is good business.

"He has good qualities, has had Premier League experience and is one we hope will come in and grow with this club.

"We spoke right at the start of pre-season to find out what the situation was (with Pennant) but it was too difficult a deal to do then.

"As we got closer to the deadline the deal became more viable to us as a football club."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email