Keeping a promoted team in the Barclays Premier League may be football's equivalent of turning water into wine, but Tony Pulis hopes to follow Harry Redknapp's example and extend Stoke City's spell in the top flight beyond a single season.

The Stoke manager will today set about building a team who can buck the trend of recent years and be competitive in the top flight after their promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship was sealed on Sunday with a 0-0 draw at home to Leicester City, coupled with other results going their way.

Pulis worked as a player, assistant and manager at Bournemouth almost 20 years ago as he learnt his trade from Redknapp, who, in two stints in charge of Portsmouth, has offered a template of how to survive.

While Peter Coates, the Stoke chairman, is not in the same financial league as Alexandre Gaydamak, the Portsmouth owner, Pulis is preparing to “spend more than this club have ever spent” this summer, but believes that good player selection can be the key to consolidation.

“I would be very disappointed having got promoted if we couldn't stay there,” Pulis said. “We have to invest. We have a different plan in place. The financial rewards give us a chance, if we are clever enough. I've spoken to Peter about being cleverer than others. It's about good players and about having the resources.

“I've worked with the cleverest manager who has ever lived, in Harry Redknapp. I've seen him talk Arabs into buying sand. It's knowing where the players are. We'll have to spend more money than this club has ever dreamt of spending before.”

Tony Mowbray, the West Bromwich Albion manager, has said that his team will have less adapting to do for next season because they already play a Premier League style. He also intimated that Stoke would be likelier to struggle as they rely on a direct approach that will get exposed by higher-quality opponents, able to stretch the pitch and create more holes. Pulis, however, believes that this is simply a matter of the players the two promoted teams have at their disposal.

“It's easy to stereotype,” he said. “We work hard on shape and pattern. I've watched some fantastic coaches. Harry always used to say it's about good players. The better players you get, the better you play.

“It's no coincidence that the top-four budgets are the biggest. If you organise and get them set up to work as a team you get better results. You get certain managers who get the most money who are applauded. The ones who should be applauded are the ones who have a small budget and who overachieve.”

Stoke will enjoy an open-top bus ride around the city tonight before a civic ceremony to mark their return to the top flight after a 23-year absence. Coates, who is in the process of buying the club's training ground, will then sit down to talk budgets with Pulis, who is likely to receive a £1million bonus for achieving promotion in his second season back at the club.

Stoke's attendances have averaged only around 16,000 this season but Pulis believes they will be playing in front of sell-out crowds again in the Premier League. “The chairman will tell you that we have lost a few generations of supporters because we have been in this division for so long,” the manager said. “We will now, I think, generate a new group of supporters around Stoke-on-Trent.

“That is vital for the club. Traditionally this club has been very well supported and the chairman is absolutely convinced that this will start it all off again and those supporters will come back. We have a big catchment area. Peter knows the club as he has been a supporter since he was a kid so I believe what he says.”