Stoke boss Tony Pulis has told TEAMtalk's Insider Mark Holmes he has been all over Europe only to find other clubs watching the same players.

Stoke ensured their Premier League survival some two weeks ago and that has given Pulis a head start on some of his fellow bosses as he prepares for another season in the top flight.

The Potters' scouting team has compiled a large list of possible transfer targets over recent months and Pulis has begun his own assessing in earnest, already taking in three games across Europe with three more planned over the next 10 days.

He was spotted at the Real Mallorca versus Barcelona game recently, is thought to have been in France, and also travelled to Germany to check out Wolfsburg's strike pair Grafite and Edin Dzeko.

Dzeko is reportedly being watched by a host of other Premier League clubs, though, and Pulis admits Stoke's scouting system simply does not compare to many of their more established rivals.

He said: "I've watched three games in three different countries recently and I've got three more games to do over the next 10 days.

"I've just been checking up on what people have recommended and having a look at the standard of competition compared to what we're playing in.

"But what has happened is that everybody, instead of just scouting England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland, are now scouting all over so every where we go is already being covered.

"We have to look at the foreign market, you have to keep your finger on the pulse, but there are other clubs who have been doing this for 10 or 11 years and they're miles in front of us.

"They've got a scouting set-up in place that has been running and is well oiled but we've not needed to do that because I've always believed you can get a club out of the Championship with mainly British players.

"Now we're in the Premier League we need to spread the net a bit wider so we will put our own system in place over the next 12 months and I am sure we will start to see the seeds growing."

Pulis accepts Stoke are no longer at the very bottom of the heap when it comes to attracting players, but he believes they must stay in the Premier League for at least another three years before they can begin to really compete in the transfer market.

The 51-year-old has got no intention of leaving any time soon, however, and wants to build the club into one that can challenge any club in England for the signatures of the best players.

He said: "The football club has moved on immensely in the past two years but we now need to stay in the Premier League for at least another two years to put all the structures in place that other clubs have got.

"The chairman is spending a lot of money on the training ground but that is just another step on a long path we need to take to compete with other clubs.

"We're in a better selling position than we were last year so we've got a better sales pitch when it comes to signing players, but we're not on the top shelf or even the second shelf of clubs.

"We'll start moving up the ladder over the next few years and if we can do that we have to find a system that gives us a chance of nicking one or two good players before the big boys get hold of them.

"We need to be a bit cuter than the other clubs and get to places before other people even spot these players so that will take time but there are a lot of things I want to put in place that will improve the club over the next 10 years.

"We have to realise that this is a long job. We want to establish ourselves as a Premier League club so we have to work behind the scenes to put us in a position where in the next 10 or 15 years we can be competitive with anybody.

"Next year and the year after will be battles again but if we can get through them I think you'll see this football club really grow.

"With the finance that comes in, the sounding you make through the football world and the tradition this club has got I think you will see people wanting to come to us rather than us being out there trying to attract them."