Terry Conroy said on Radio Stoke at lunchtime that he expects Stoke to struggle to stay in the Premiership this coming season. It seems rather strange, at a time when most of our supporters are beginning to feel a little optimistic about the future that he should make such a statement. He may well be right of course. A new manager trying out new players does not automatically give us an advantage over our opponents. Lets hope that Mr Hughes can iron out any difficulties before we meet Liverpool and prove Terry wrong.
There are other teams in the same boat, i'd settle for a bit of mid table obscurity but don't think we'll have any real idea of what to expect until 10 games in.
It's more than likely because we seem to be doing our normal thing of buying loads of defenders when our real problem is that we cannot score and I have yet to hear us linked with a decent striker or two!
Well our scoring problems were always more about the service to the strikers than the strikers themselves. I'd be more concerned about replacing Matty and getting Pennant back to his best
Let's be honest, most of us want to see Stoke City ATTACK more! I think with another good winger we will be OK this season. Of course it won't be easy, it never is. Mid table and some half decent football will do for me! IF we can (play it from the back) and feed the two wide men? who knows we might even surprise a few teams. I'm sure that is what MH Hughes is planning to do. STOP this just lump it up front and hope re Pulis.
The strikers we have though are not clinical or fast enough, with the exception of maybe Jerome. Crouch and Jones are has beens to be fair and Walters is not really prolific. A couple of young and hungry goal getters is what I'd like to see coming in!
Just after Hughes signed we were liked its Victor Anichebe, I think it was just paper talk, as I've heard nothing else on it since, but I think he is a player who could do well for us.
Well I am also surprised that TC makes such comments before a ball is kicked. I certainly expect it to be different. Hoping to see the u 21's at Bedford Town on 23rd and as I am going to Old Trafford for the cricket on 4th and 5th may get the chance to go to Macclesfield on the Saturday. Am hoping we do see us play some football. However a little concerned about Erik Peters and his style.
I find TC's comments as very strange - smacks of Pulis loyality to me? I think if begovic stays we have a very good defensive line up which as the option to get forward more - which was always the main issue under TP. A decent season out of Pennant and the options of Palcious, Wilson & Nzozni in the defensive midfiled gives us a very solid structure to build on. I understand supporters concerns with our strike force and I do expect changes/additions in this department - but it will probably be a deadline day siging when the musical chairs has stopped. My gut feel is that Hughes will play a different formation to TP anyway which will reduce the pressure of either having 2 wingers or 2 out and out strikers. It is likely that we will loose one of Crouch/Jones but with Adam having a free roll which is more natural to him and Jerome probably getting more time I would expect our creativity and forward movement to be much better. Whether this translates into goals is a different matter.
