It is summer and all things seem possible. The Stoke City players happily slog away, showing off muscle definition they never knew they could have, while the gaffer, the player of the season and I have a picnic on the training ground’s lush grass.

The Barclays Premier League will be no picnic for Stoke, but for now optimism reigns – all the more so after the £5.5 million club-record signing of Dave Kitson, the striker, from Reading on Friday. Tony Pulis, the manager, and Liam Lawrence, the outstanding player of their promotion campaign last season, are all smiles. They do not mind that few give them a chance of avoiding humiliation in the top flight.

“The biggest asset for us is that everyone thinks we’re going to get relegated,” Pulis says. “It’s definitely a weapon we can use. Nobody expected us to get promoted. We proved everybody wrong. We lost the least games and only West Bromwich scored more goals than us – and even right at the end people were still surprised we got promoted. The only people who weren’t surprised were the people in the football club.”

Does he not mind that Stoke slipped into the big time, as Coca-Cola Championship runners-up, without fanfare? “No, we’re in the Premiership,” Pulis says. “It makes no difference when we go to Old Trafford and Anfield and the Emirates [Stadium] and Stamford Bridge. We’re in the Premiership. I think the Premiership is a fantastic league. The pace and the quality of the players is extraordinary.”

The big question, then, is how Stoke will deal with that quality and pace. “First, we’ve got to get our players as fit as we possibly can,” Pulis says. “And, secondly, we’ve got to make sure that we recruit and get better players in.”

Lawrence is aware, from his relegation season in the top flight with Sunderland in 2005-06, that there is a need for new blood. “The forwards and taking chances are the big difference,” the midfield player says. “Other clubs took their chances better than we did and we got punished for it most weeks.” Pulis adds: “There’s a whole range of things you have to improve on. We have to be fitter and stronger.

“No disrespect to the major teams, but if you look at what José Mourinho did for Chelsea – the power and speed he brought, never mind the quality – they were all very good athletes. And Manchester United have evolved to be bigger, stronger, quicker than they have ever been before.

“We’ve got to make sure we don’t get outmuscled and outbattled and that we are fit enough to survive, but we’ve also got to get that extra bit of quality, like Liam says.”

What can those unfamiliar with Championship football expect from Stoke? “They’ll get a physical game, that’s for sure,” Lawrence says. “We’re a physical side and we like to get in people’s faces, so we won’t make it easy for teams, hopefully.”

Pulis says: “They’ll see a team that’s committed – a group of players that play for one another. That’s what we’ve always based our ethic on, really: the team is more important than any individual. This team and its players turned up every single week last season. There were a lot of teams bigger than us with better supporters, better players, better squads, but we lost less games than anyone else because our lads had a go.”

Will Pulis care if it is said that Stoke are dull and lack finesse? “Well, they said it last season,” he says. “We went to Sheffield United and beat them 3-0 and they’re supposed to be the best footballing team in the league. We played West Brom and beat them 3-1 and they were supposed to be the best footballing team in the league. And people still say we’re boring. I can’t understand it.” So, are Stoke a boring team to play for? “No, definitely not,” Lawrence says. “I got 15 goals last year and I don’t call that boring.”

Pulis says: “The two wide players got 24 goals between them. If you’re boring, you’re not moving from your positions, you’re just sitting in there. But you’ve got wide players and centre halves scoring goals as well.”

Lawrence says: “We’re boring because we didn’t really give teams much chance to play against us, did we?” Pulis says: “It’s little old Stoke, but we go there and win and they’ve got to find reasons. And the easiest excuse is to say that they’re boring and we wouldn’t want to play that way. You get used to it.”

Stoke fans can take heart that Pulis’s players are taking the Premier League seriously. They were given a fitness programme after celebrating promotion and they have stuck to it. “The lads have come back fitter than I’ve ever seen a group of lads and I’ve been a manager now 14 or 15 years,” Pulis says. Lawrence adds: “A lot of the players have come back fit that you’d not have expected to.”

The manager is impressed. “Liam is most probably one of the best signings I’ve ever made,” Pulis says. “His attitude and application on the pitch is absolutely amazing. Don’t get big-headed, Liam.” But, given that Lawrence knows what is in store, he is unlikely to do so.

BORED GAMES

So, are Stoke boring? Bill Edgar puts the case for the prosecution and the defence to let you decide . . .

NoThey were the second-highest scorers in the Coca-Cola Championship last season with 69 goals, earning them the second automatic promotion place behind West Bromwich Albion.

Maybe While their 80 yellow cards was the fifth-highest total in the division last season, they received only two red cards, the joint-third fewest.

Yes Only two of their rivals managed fewer than Stoke’s 451 attempts at goal.

Yes They lacked variety in goalscoring. Nine members of the squad scored, far fewer than the other two promoted clubs. Hull City, who went up through the play-offs, had 14 scorers and West Brom 15.