Stoke manager Tony Pulis has dismissed Arsene Wenger's criticism of his team's tactics, accusing the Arsenal boss of trying to rewrite history. Wenger claimed yesterday that Stoke players, and Rory Delap in particular, had deliberately set out to injure his side at the Britannia Stadium

Emmanuel Adebayor will be out for three weeks due to the ankle injury he picked up in the game while Theo Walcott and Bacary Sagna also sustained knocks. But Pulis today hit back at Wenger, claiming he was guilty of a u-turn after initially accepting defeat graciously.

"In Stoke on Saturday evening, Mr Wenger talked openly about Arsenal's encounter with Stoke as being a 'typical English encounter'," Pulis said.

"In London 48 hours later and 150 miles away from Stoke-on-Trent, Mr Wenger changed tack and has tried to rewrite history. Remember there was only one red card on Saturday and the last time I watched the game it certainly was not a Stoke City player who received it.

"As for Rory Delap's challenges on Theo Walcott and Bacary Sagna, Rory is as honest and committed as they come," he added. "They were free-kicks, but Rory would never purposely go out to injure a fellow professional, it's just not in Rory's nature."

Wenger launched a broadside yesterday, accusing Delap and Ryan Shawcross of attempting to deliberately injure his men.

"I read that my team were not brave. All I can say is they are brave and, for me, you need to have more courage to play football when you know that someone is tackling you from behind without any intention to play the ball," he said.

"The only intention is to hurt you and I can show some tackles where I can prove what I say. The one who is tackling is not the brave one.

"It happened at the weekend. Do you think (Rory) Delap tried to play the ball when he tackled Walcott? Or that Shawcross tried to play the ball when he tackled Adebayor off the pitch. All the players have been injured deliberately."