Im starting to get really worried about the strength and depth of our squad, also our lack of activity in the transfer window. Our European adventure starts Thursday and could well end Thursday. What is TP doing, we should have players signed by now surely, especially as we are in Europe. For ****s sake pulis do SOMETHING!!!!!!!!. Does anyone else feel the same or am I on my own with this one?.
I'm right with you Ricc, and have my fingers crossed T.P. will pull something special out of the bag,we have though got to give him a chance. Here's hoping!!.
Stoke are not going to shell out 50-60k a week on average players, we're not Hull! The future of the club is more important, going bust trying to win the Europa League and then sliding down to league one would be kind of couter productive after the progress that the club has made over the last three seasons. The team that reached the FA Cup final (with the added bonus of a fit Etherington and Huth) are quite capable of getting a result against Split over two legs. If you think about it Europa League group stages sounds a lot better than Europa League qualifying rounds to any potential signings, who are most likely holding on to see how we do against Split before putting pen to paper.
ricc,I said exactly what you`ve just posted on the Aldershot 1-0Stoke thread.On `news now` website` TP is quoted as saying he wants 4 or 5 new players in by the end of August, but what`s the point of waiting so long when the seasons already started and we`ve played 3 or 4 games,New players need time to settle in and get `TP fit!!!` I just don`t get the thinking.
Hi Ricc, Potts is back and so am I!! And NO you are not alone, it's been frustrating not posting the past few days about; Pulis - The Pride of the Potteries. It is becoming a recurring sick joke with this guy, it will be all right on the night!! Yea sure it will be Tone, by the end of August Window we will probably be a couple of points adrift and out of Europe. Oh and spot on, no we are not Hull, surprise surprise we are Stoke City in case you hadn't noticed L anyway who the L are you when you are at home?? No - we have been in the Prem for 3 years, where has the money gone Pete?? Filling in the corner - nope SERIOUSLY improving the squad in CM - nope Quality Striker - nope - luv Jonny though!! Quality full back - nope But it's all OK innit - in TP you trust. Never have - never will. Still don't know why Sgt and 72 never responded to my posts etc - hey ho. By the way, I know that you are all devastated that this post is in prose and not in Verse. Fear not, from now on they will be in Sonnet format, 14 lines of stanzas of: 4 lines 4 lines (Called an Octet) And 3 lines 3 lines (Called a Sestet) They may Rhyme or Not but each line will have the same number of syllables in a Iambic Pentametre structure. So there ye go, expect ONE more post this year then All the best ONB
Yes we all want new players, but we know pulis aint gonna buy anyone till late august! so stop complaining and get used to it
What's the point! With our 1st 7 games I can see us languishing well down the league, low on moral and our if Europe! How the fuk are we going to attract quality players then? Nick is right, no ground improvement, no full back improvement, no CM improvement (imperative - and I don't think 8 million on Mamba's mate is what we need) and no striker improvement - although we could probably get by with a loan if we improved the other areas! The three year plan has just been a smoke screen - where has all the money gone?
Throw Delap etc etc - no I will NOT bloody well get used to it, I am seriously glad that you are happy and are used to it. Look around these posts and guess what it's Not me that is out of step or kilter It's you and your ilk that are the problem with Your blind acceptance and following of somebod who In the kingdom of the blind The one eyed man is King (That's the octet) Why can you not see for yourself that His and Peter's reticence to invest furthe, will Only end in tears? How dreary and boring do we have to Be, before you will understand that the Three year plan is all a sham (And that's the sestet) Well there you go, a sonnet I promised you I hope you find that, that will do
Well done for recognising which part of the forum you are posting on, after reading your insane ramblings I had to go back and double check myself.... I really don't know why people come on here and get so upset when the club have made their strategy public from day one. Evolution, not revolution is the key here and over the last three seasons the club has more than backed it up. Three (going on four) seasons in the Premiership, an FA Cup Final (first in the club's history), return to European football (after 37 years), much improved squad over the last three seasons, £5M training facilities and an overhaul of the Superstore and the main Ticket Office. But what have TP and Coates done for us recently, right? Its very easy to get carried away with last season's achievements (despite Tuncay, I know...), but the smart thing is to remain sensible and not try to push the club on to quickly, Birmingham, Hull, Leeds, Pompy, West Ham and Bradford are all lessons that should be remembered. Stoke can't afford to pay players 60k+ a week, 70% of the club's turnover is spent on wages already. The reason we have a wage cap is also the reason that we are not in debt and saddled with average players with inflated egos on huge contracts not performing. I seem to remember people blasting TP for not signing Bullard at the time, what a sound investment that would have been... Apart from Sunderland and Liverpool there hasn't been a lot of movement in the transfer window so far, it's not just Stoke. We will sign someone when its right for the club, not give in to ridiculous wage demands that can put the club in danger. I seem to remember the same kind of hysteria doing the rounds this time last season and look how it turned out....
Just for L in plain prose so even somebody like you can understand. So anybody that is not PRO Pulis is wrong, oh and by the way the insane rambling you so wittily refer to was a particularly fine sonnet. Well I am sure you will excuse me for not getting terribly excited at us having a new ticketing system AND a new superstore, sooner have a decent CM thank you very much, but I am sure that you get your thrills buying the latest Pulis T shirt or autographed baseball cap. Well bully for you sonny jim. Now then, I'm sure that you will be delighted to know that this will be the last post directed at you, it bores me senseless trying to debate with Grade A idiots
Having a realistic outlook of where the club is, where it wants to be and what it needs to do to get there, doesn't really make anyone "Pro Pulis" (this imaginary cult that you have devised in your head) I'd say that shouting the odds and generally getting upset because the club don't go for unrealistic targets bounded about by unreliable news paper columns such as Defoe, Reo-Coker and niko kranjcar etc. would fall into the "A grade" idiocy class. Every man and his dog knows where the team need strengthening but to get better players than what we already have we will need to spend and spend wisely, Stoke can't afford passengers like Zigic, Hleb, Martins, Bullard, or the entire west ham squad (minus Parker) etc. You need to take off your special "Stoke tinted transfer window" spectacles and step out of fantasy land for a moment, In the real world players and agents rule. Its not as simple as offering a player a contract and him signing it the next day, First you have to thrash a deal out with the agent and agree an agent's fee (that many people forget about) then that contract will go around to five or six different clubs with the express purpose of getting an improved offer, any offer comes in over our £45-£50k a week wage cap....? we can't match it and we are out of the race. Its no wonder that you come on these boards and moan, it's because you are constantly disappointed by your own ridiculous expectations of the club. We would all like to sign this player and that player and play a certain way, Stoke have come a long long way in five years but the reality of it is as to regards to the Premier League we are a small fish in a big pond, it takes time to grow. We have the base to move on and became a bigger club but it isn't going to happen overnight.
Hello Nick. Glad to have you back and with wonderful news. I thought L was for learner, an judging by his posts a slow one at that!
I think L has made some valid points about wages and the clubs progression. Nick, while I agree with you about the new shop and ticket office, I can't understand the thinking behind doing that, rather than using the money to buy a new player, but I'm not a business man. Coates is a Stoke fan, and will want to see the club move on and improve, but to do that, he needs to get the club to make more money, rather than relying on his own funds to push us on, because they won't last forever!
Sensible comments - however you make money from fans, sponsership and gate spend! Fill the corners in to create more gate revenue - cant do that because it will take a season to recoup and they dou$bt we can fill them seats - nothing like faith in the brand you are promoting! If coates and TP are doing such a great job, why wouldnt an immediate catchment area of 250,000 residents with a further 250,000 within a 30 minute radius, not attract 35,000 fans? The reason is that nobody likes our club so people do not want to invest their cash to watch paint dry and negative football with the hope that 1 in 4/5 home games we might actually play to our potential! We have no flair players that young fans (the future of teh club) can relate to and aspire to be! So they dont want to come and watch and they dont by replica shirts with their favourite players name on! The only shirts I see at match day are a load of overweight men with DAD printed on the back or kids with their own names! Finally, considering Coates is a retail caterer you would think he could understand the need to extract every penny out of the paying fan whilst in the ground! Sh1t food, Sh1t service, always run out by of supplies at half time and no effeciencey and staff that dont want to serve you! I rekon they are losing at least £1 or £2 per head per game through pure ineffectivness! These are basics in running a prem club and not 12k championship club, something that we still havent seemed to master - maybe thats in the 17.296785432 year plan?
All very good point Smithers. I think the "upgraded" shop and ticket office must be to make things more efficeint and effective on that front, I'm not sure how, but there must be a reason for them doing it, and I'm guessing that is it. You're dead right about the catering though, the food is awful, and I'm sure there's something wrong with the beer, never tastes like that from a can. Speaking of which, a lot of music venues I go to sell cans of beer for between 2.50 and 2.70, stupid money for a can, I know, but I'd much rather pay that than 3 quid odd for a Tetleys with bits floating in it, or the "Cider". You know that's gotta be bad when it's advertised as just cider and not the brand name. As I said, you've made goos points here, and they all make sense and seems viable to me, but Coatesy must have thought of them all too, and there must be reasons for them not being done. I'm not saying they're the right reasons (for the club), but he knows more about making money than I do!
It sounds fantastic over there in fantasy land but the truth is that the club simply can't afford to break the wage cap as it stands and personally I wouldn't want them to do so if it ment us sliding into administration which is more than likely. Why risk the future of the club, it's lunacy. Fine so you find a player and offer him £60k a week, what kind of knock on effect do you think that will have on the rest of the squad, or other potential signings down the line? The wage bill will only get bigger and before you know it you're in trouble, as stated before the club is already spending 70% of its income on wages alone. Also on the the league postion this season, Stoke were also one point away from a top ten finish, where Villa are who spent £20M on Darren Bent this season and despite who we played in the FA Cup we were still huge under dogs in the quarters, semis and obviously the final, so it was hardly a walk in the park... Like I said before when we spend money we have to spend it wisely, we spent £8M on Jones last season, also bought in Walters and Pennant and I'm sure TP will do the same kind of deals this season but they have to be the right deals. Priority isn't winning the Europa league, It's securing safety in the Premiership and then seeing where we can go from there. We are still relatively new and should not get complacent. Especially when there are examples of this every season. West Ham thought they were too good to go down, Birmingham finished ninth first time round and tried to kick on too early, threw money around on "marquee signings", even won the League Cup but ultimately went down and now have to sell off their prize assets to balance the books.
Villa have also recouped 60 million with the sale of Barry, Young and Dowing! We had a net loss of 12 million on Kitson and Tunny!
L you speak a lot of sense,and I agree with most of what you say BUT, aren`t you a teeny bit anxious about the coming season with the current squad?? Who do you see us realistically going for?Do you think the current squad will secure our safety in the Prem?
