TONY PULIS has launched a withering attack on Martin Braithwaite, accusing the forward of a “total lack of respect” for Middlesbrough Football Club and its chairman, Steve Gibson.

Braithwaite, who is currently on a season-long loan from Boro at Spanish club Leganes, conducted an interview with the Danish press this week in which he insisted he had no intention of returning to Teesside at the end of the season and accused Pulis of playing “kick and rush” football.

Pulis is not worried about the personal criticisms levelled in his direction, but the Boro boss is clearly furious at the way in which Braithwaite has disrespected the club that are still his permanent employers.

The Denmark international became one of the highest-paid players in the Championship when he join Boro from Toulouse in 2017, but has spent most of his time in English football trying to engineer a move abroad.

He spent the second half of last season on loan at Bordeaux, and tried to force through a move to Leganes last summer, despite having previously claimed he was happy in the North-East.

He started the current campaign in fine form, scoring three goals in the opening four league games, but his performances began to drop when he started eyeing a potential departure in the autumn and he found himself omitted from the first team.

“As a manager, you’ve got to accept you’ll get criticism from players, whether it’s myself of Garry Monk,” said Pulis. “But this football club spent an absolute fortune getting Braithwaite here, and on two occasions when I was here, he went to the press and said the one thing he didn’t want to do was leave this football club.

“He said he wanted to be with the football club and help the football club get promoted. If he wants to give me criticism, you have to accept that as a manager, but Steve Gibson, the chairman of this football club, has given him an absolute fortune.

“He is the highest-earning Championship player I have ever worked with, and when I was at West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League, I don’t think there were many players earning as much as Braithwaite was earning here.

“The disrespect he has shown the area and the football club is astonishing. He is someone who has taken so much out of this football club, and given so little back. For him to talk the way he’s talked, it’s really disappointing. But I’ve been in football a long time, and you come across these players now and then.

“You have to deal with it, but you’re talking about a person who on two occasions has come out and said he’s got his heart and soul in this football club, and then within 36 hours, he’s going in and seeing the chief executive and asking him to leave. That just shows what Martin is all about.”

Pulis is especially unhappy with Braithwaite’s lack of respect for Gibson, with the Boro chairman having backed Monk’s decision to recruit the attacker in the summer of 2017

“It doesn’t upset me, I’ve been in the game too long,” he said. “People can throw stones at me, but my great thing is the football club.

“The contract that Steve has given him and the money Steve has put forward, he’s made the lad a multi-millionaire. For the lad not to show any respect towards Steve, who is an owner of a football club who was desperate to back his manager at the time, is wrong.

“Steve gave everything that the kid wanted, and it just shows a total of lack of respect. Not to me, I’m just the manager of the football club, but to the owner, who spent his money, and the supporters, who spent their money to watch these players.

“Sometimes, they just have to think before they say things. It’s regrettable that he’s even mentioned it. I’d be keeping my head down and just getting on with life in Spain, where he is.”