http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/story-13829113-detail/story.html TONY Pulis has rarely sounded so angry and upset as he was after last Sunday's 5-0 drubbing at Bolton. Never, at least as a Premier League manager, has he launched into his players in the way he did in the post-match interviews at the Reebok Stadium. There was no swearing, no arm-waving and no thumping of his interviewers, but he was patently seething within after being let down by what he said was a lack of commitment from his players. Perhaps those after-match interviews were a cathartic experience for the Stoke boss after getting a few things off his chest and with such a ferocity you were tempted to duck once or twice. Such intense anger, passion and upset has been thankfully rare during his nine years and near 400 games in charge in two spells as Stoke boss ... but by no means unique. No, there have been several other times when Pulis looked ready to strangle the nearest reporter. November 2002: Walsall 4, Stoke 2 THIS was Pulis's very first game as Stoke manager, just a couple of days after he agreed to replace Steve Cotterill, and he didn't actually pick the team City fielded at the Bescot Stadium that day. He did make the substitutions, though, and was visibly hurt by chants of "you don't know what you're doing" from his own fans when substituting crowd favourite Bjarni Gudjohnsson. Both substitutes â Andy Cooke and Chris Greenacre â subsequently scored to silence those early terrace critics. But the new boss was more concerned by the defeat and the apparent size of task awaiting him at his new club. February 2003: Nottingham Forest 6, Stoke 0 THE scoreline speaks for itself. Pulis looked a little shell-shocked to say the least when seeking out the visiting media after such a deadly beating. "It's the first time as a manager that I've been beaten by such a scoreline and it hurts," he said. "We have to do better to be able to look our fans in the face." The fact he was speaking within the shadow of a bust of managerial legend Brian Clough made the scene all the more surreal. As it happens, though, the severity of the scoreline strengthened his case for the very loan signings who would eventually help steer Stoke clear of relegation on the final day of the 2002/03 campaign. July 2003: Norwich 1, Stoke 0 ACTUALLY, it wasn't a game of football, but a tug-of-war over Wimbledon midfielder Damien Francis. Francis had not only visited the Britannia, but he had trained with his prospective new colleagues ahead of his impending signature. But Carrow Road was his final destination and Pulis stormed through the corridors with a face of thunder after blaming the Icelandic owners for dragging their heels once too often. Talk of inserting a relegation clause into his contract was believed to be one of the reasons Francis eventually chose Norwich instead. "I am absolutely devastated," Pulis ranted, "this was a lad I had been chasing for three months and he was the big one for me this summer. The fans would have loved him. "Everything was in place, he was up here yesterday and even joined the other lads for light training." May 2007: QPR 1, Stoke 1 THE final game of the 2006/07 season â Pulis's first campaign in his second spell as manager â when victory could have squeezed Stoke into the play-offs. As it turned out, results elsewhere meant City would have needed to win by four goals at Loftus Road that day. But that didn't dilute the immense deflation written large across the manager's face as he met the visiting media in a draughty concourse outside a burger bar just closing for business. He didn't look great, but he didn't sound too bad looking back on his quotes now... "We are desperately disappointed to take it to the last game and for it not to fall for us. "But it's no use crying over spilt milk. We are shaking off the image of being a mid-table team and if we can wheel and deal over the summer, we can come back stronger next season." And so they did, of course, by-passing the play-offs 12 months later to gain automatic promotion to the big time. May 2011: Manchester City 1, Stoke 0 THE big one, the FA Cup final itself. There was an evident sense of anti-climax, emptiness even, shared by us all that day. The manager had seen his dreams of Wembley glory shattered by an under-par performance from an under-strength team. He couldn't criticise his players, of course, but was entitled to bemoan the injuries which had not only robbed him of Ricardo Fuller and Danny Higginbotham, but left Robert Huth and Matthew Etherington pretty pale shadows of their true selves. Crammed into a room the size of a phone box to confront around 25 Monday newspaper reporters after the main press conference next door, it was hardly a fitting setting for a cup final manager to conclude his many after-match media commitments. "You really need to bring your A game to the table and we fell just short of that," he acknowledged. "I honestly don't know why. The players are human beings. They have good days and bad days, like we all do. "Where do I go now? A bunker somewhere for 48 hours." No doubt the very same bunker from which he contemplated Sunday's debacle too.
T.P. STOP taking and let's see some action ON the pitch NOT off it! We lost now, YOU make sure whoever plays next week is ready because I am.
He should be embarrassed by that performance, not angry! That result has been brewing for a while but IMO no worse than the Sunderland game! This is nothing new and some of home performances have been very poor aswell! Poor tactics, Poor Team Selection, Poor motivation............ has TP finaly lost the team and their direction?
