After Mick McCarthy's sacking I was suprised to find that Wolves were in fact at the bottom of the form league. However, it was interesting to note who else was down there and was wondering whether a few more bad results may lead to the similar fate of the straight talking northerner who can smell round corner 17th VILLA PLD 6/ WON 1/ DRAWN 2/ LOST 3/ GF 9/ GA11/ PTS 5 18th STOKE PLD 6/ WON 1/ DRAWN 1/ LOST 4/ GF 4 (*)/ GA 7/ PTS 4 19th WIGAN PLD 6/ WON 1/ DRAWN 1/ LOST 4/ GF 6/ GA 11/ PTS 4 20th WOLVES PLD 6/ WON 1/ DRAWN 1/ LOST 4/ GF 6/ GA 14/ PTS 4 (*) Lowest in the league! I wonder whether any of these other clubs and managers are in a similiar situation to Wolves considering the similarity in form and position! Thoughts?
Form Guide: 6 Games From Swansea (A) to QPR (H) Won 1 Drew 0 Lost 5 Form Guide: The next 6 Games From Blackburn (H) to A Villa (H) Won 4 Drew 1 Lost 1 Like i said on another thread smithers, we go on good runs & we go on bad runs & we normally have 2 bad runs per season, anyone can interpret a block of 6 games in anyway they want too. It's after 38 games that matters
Haven't you guys played nearly 50 games already? You've got a decent sized squad but it's always going to take it's toll when you play so many games. Even after this run, you're as close to 7th as you are to the relegation zone so it's really not bad, especially given your excellent progress in the Europa League.
There are statistics, and even more statistics which you can usually fashion to suit any arguement that you wish to raise. Really we should look at whether the performances indicate that we are about to turn the corner, and do somewhat better than our last 9 league games (1 win).When you look at the fact that we have to play Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, Man City, and then at the other end of the scale, Bolton, Wolves, QPR, Wigan, Ason V, - there will not be too many games where the opposition have nothing to play for - the question then becomes will SCFC have the determination, spirit and desire to get sufficient points to keep relatively safe? I hope so, but over the last 7 weeks we have looked incredibly lame.
Who was it that once said.. You can argue all day, but FACT'S are FACT'S. The ONLY thing keeping us off bottom is that Wolves got hammered by -4 goals I think. What concerns me is NOT the Spurs, Chelsea games away. But, QPR, Wigan and Villa away. A few weeks back I would have fancied us to get something but now?
I understand Huth's point about blips and to be fair I dont think anyone of us really thinks we will end up near the relegation zone, but it has sort of become exceptable for Stoke to have several "blips", a poor away record (although this season it is our away results that have got us where we are) and play poor quality football.
Smithers after 23 years in the wilderness, we finally reached the Mighty Kingdom of the Premiership, now after allmost 4 years, people expect us too compete for Europe/Champions League with the amount of money we have spent, we are spending too paly catch up, the teams we are around have been there for years. WE ARE STOKE Consolidation is paramount. Yes we are playing **** (have all season), but we will survive again this season. Like i have said before on other threads, Pulis frustrates the **** out of me. Am i enjoying life in the Prem? You bet the ****ing life i am Am i enjoying the football we are playing? Am i **** But if that is what it takes too keep us in the Prem (with the odd cup run), then i will accept it.
I, like you and lot of other fans are unfortunatley in a position where we have to except - otherwise we would be cutting our nose of to spite our face! I understand your point in relation to our spending (catching up with establsihed prem teams etc..) and agree that there was a needed expenditure to fill the gaps and get us to a standard that would hold our lofty position in the prized league. Whether he could have achieved the same results spending half the money is the debate?
Personally, I don't think so. Looks like I could be proved wrong by Swansea and Norwich this season, but typically any team who's come up and stayed up has had to spend, I also think given their style of play makes things easier, they have been playing "nice" football for years, so I think making additions for them is easier, where as we have had to try and evolve (even though we currently seem to be going backwards) which has cost us a fair bit.
I think if we look at what players have been bought that have either never played or only had a handful of games, it would surley point to the fact that there has been an element of wasted money? I liked your point RE: "nice football" and I think that is something that has hindered us in our progression or as you elude to - a lack of.
These nice football teams that get promoted, nearly allways get found out in the 2nd half of the season, if they are lucky too survive, the year after is even harder.
Yeah, with hindsight, Kitson, Sonko, Amdy Faye etc, all money pretty much wasted looking on the surface, and there we could have got away with not buying quite a few of them, but it would have also been a massive risk to not have got a lot of the "panic buy" players to basically just bulk out the squad, casue when we got promoted we had a relatively small squad, and a few bad injuries could have really done us in.
Disagree to a point PP, I thought at the time that Kitson was a great buy. His previous season he scored quite a few goals (can't be bothered to google to find out the exact number), don't know what happened to his attitude, don't know what the the issues were with Pulis (or vice versa), so basically I don't know an awful lot. But what I do know is that he was not best used by Pulis and that we lost a lot of money, seeing he ended up as a makeweight with Lawrence for Wilson, oh and of course the £4 million in cash. We could also add quite a few to your list
