Soccer: Pulis keen to retain Chadli amid Swansea talks
By Michael Church
HONG KONG (Reuters) - West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Pulis wants to retain Nacer Chadli amid reports of Premier League rival Swansea City's interest in the central defender.
The former Tottenham Hotspur player has been linked with a move to the Paul Clement-managed side, but Pulis stressed his club have no need to cash in on the 27-year-old.
"Chadli is a West Brom player, he's been a West Brom player for a year and let's hope he's a West Brom player for a couple more years," said Pulis.
"He signed a three or four-year contract. We have no reason to get rid of Chadli, we don't need the money and he's a good player and we want to keep our good players."
Chadli is part of Pulis' squad for the Premier League Asia Trophy in Hong Kong, where they lost their opening game against Leicester City on Wednesday evening in a penalty shootout.
Pulis gave new loan signing Ahmed Hegazy his first start for the club in the match and the manager was pleased with the outcome.
"I thought he did well the other night," Pulis said of the Egyptian centre back.
"He's mixed in well, he speaks good English and that's important. It's not a difficult group to get in and feel comfortable with. There are some good people in the group so it's not difficult.
"You try and build a family home at football clubs and you try and build something that players are happy to go into. That's always been very important for me.
"It's building a club around good people and even if they have an edge it's about putting them in with decent lads and I think he's already settled in."
Pulis' club have also signed China international striker Zhang Yuning this summer before sending the 20-year-old to Werder Bremen on a two-year loan deal.
Pulis was hopeful the former Vitesse striker could continue to develop during his stint in the Bundesliga.
"The situation is it's very good for us with Chinese owners that we get an exciting Chinese player brought into the club," he said.
"He's got two years to prove himself. Hopefully he'll reach that standard and, having reached that standard, we can bring him to England in two years' or a year's time and then China will have a centre forward playing in the Premier League, which would be wonderful."
(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)