After 3 years you'd think Pulis might have found a method of playing away from home but no. He is still as clued up in that department as I am with the topic of my next essay!!
Have to agree, we're a plie of ****e on our travels and it really has to change. Millions spent and we're still as incipid and lethergic away from home as we were in our first season. Also, has Pennant forgotten how to cross a ball or take a free-kick? He should be locked inside the training ground for the whole international break until he remembers how to get the ball past the first man. He was abysmal today. For what it's worth, my Stoke MOTM was Crouch. Did well at bringing others into play but never got the service from the flanks or midfield to get the goal his performance deserved.
I siad on another thread that I thought our wide players final ball were below par and that is definatley restricting the end product! Players out of position and the wrong players make a cocktail of failure and will continue - you cant paper over the massives crack we have in our team and expect to compete consistently at this level!
Amazing how one week we're matching Man United in passing, one of the best teams in the world, suddenly we're away from home and by the sounds of it we can't string 2 passes together!!
Thats the mpst frustrating thing, we are not **** - if we were then so be it! We just set up like **** and TP tolerates these performances by never dropping certain players!
We certainly are not **** Smither's.. but too many player's start when sadly, they ain't good enough..
£8m on a midfield player who was either injured when we bought him, or has been unable to complete more than 70 minutes, since we bought him? Did Wilson Palacios undergo the same medical as Demba Ba? The midfield of Whelan, Whitehead and Delap has failed so often away from home, you just can't believe it. Remeber £3m on Diego Arisamendi - on the bench today - could he really be a worse bet than Witehead / Delap as a defensive midfielder? Shotton - man of the match on Thursday - I'd let him play wide right away from home, as Pennant and Etherington (when fit) need a rocket up their arses at the moment. To cap it all, Mama after 60 minutes in the reserves makes it back to the bench- all those months we had to put up with TP's garbage about Tuncay not being "Stoke Fit", yet Big Mama, clearly is. TP is not the worst manger we have ever had by a long shot, but with all the money that he has had to spend, he does not qualify as the best either. He is certainly the most infuriating, and no doubt, he will comment that the problem is that we expect too much as fans. Is it really too much, to ask to score goals on a regular basis away from home, is it too much to ask to see last years player of the year (as voted by everyone connected with SCFC) playing at Centre Half? Is it too much to ask, that he justn once thinks that he might have tactically got it wrong, as he does on every away game we play?
Swervy GREAT post... you have it spot on. At home I am fine with "our set up our style we generally go for it" But Away.. is why I will not waste what is now through a forced retirement re pension, going to away games. It just isn't worth it for me anyway.
Without patronising I dont think this is the case! I think like me, we have come to except our home selction as a happy compromise and the result is adequate results which keep us in the league! At home we still select the wrong players, play a restricted formation and shut up shop when ahead. It is merely the pressure of the home crowd that incentivises them to maximise the occassion and for that reason alone, it is the season ticket holders who are just as responsibel for our success! This just happens to be the total opposite of Coates who made those negative statements last term about the knowledge of the fans, and TP who belittles us with the patronising comments of our unrealistic expections! My understanding is that the main aim of the game is to score more goals than the opposition, and inturn collect more points over the season? So I assume that the unrealistic fans must feel that scoring goals is too much?
I REST MY CASE. Regarding Pulis, I think my opinion is widely known on here, all this stuff justifies my total rejection of him as the manager of my football club.
Have kept my own counsel this season mainly due to travelling up and down the country with my son's athletics. By the way beats watching Stoke away from home. Sorry! Utter bile, boring, not worth the money.... Could go on and on. Problems: 1 negative set up away 2 wide midfielders either not fully fit or simply under performing. Quality of final ball from them dreadful. 3. Central midfield by far the worst in the league for me. Poor retention of the ball, poor link up to the front men, limited skill and simply not good enough. I thought our priority was to bring in more quality in to the team. Crouch and Jerome okay. Prefer Huth to Woodgate. Palacious not good enough to play for Spurs and clearly not fit enough for Stoke. Love Delap but please no more. Bench player at best. The rest are journeyman footballers to me in midfield. One positive about them, they work bloody hard and sweat blood for the club so at least they have that. 4. Europe and then playing away. This is catching up with us already in my view and may get worse. On the positive side we were like this last year for long periods and then hit some brilliant form, so let's see where we are at Xmas. Just my thoughts 4.
We always seem to catch you at the right time though. Wouldn't want to play you right now, you're playing exceptionally well right now.
Yeah we are mate lol Last game at your place Pardew's tactics of 5 at back were abismal and we asked to get beat really (left Jonas out) and the home game Perch was playing haha You lot will be pushing up near top 7 or 8 this year imo!
If Pulis changed his tactics away from home then we could well be but with no change in his awful away tactics, we will finish bottom half again I reckon.
Outside the top 6 anybody could finish anywhere imo You need an extra winger or 2 like. Delap on the wing is a bit **** isn't it How is Woody doing? Love that lad. World class defender imo. Probably only Coloccini/Taylor that have been better than him in the best decade at Newcastle at centre back
Delap on the wing is pretty frightening I admit. We tried for Wright-Phillips but he went for the money at QPR. We have an exciting young winger named Ben Marshall who would've been adequate cover but Pulis sent him out on loan to Sheffield Wednesday, where he has been superb from what I've been told by a Wednesday fan. Woody has been ok. Performed brilliantly in 3 games (Hajduk away, Chelsea at home and United at home) but has been at fault for a few goals, 1 against Sunderland, 1 arguably against United and by the sounds of it 1 today. Some Stoke fans are a little baffled as to why Pulis has broken up the Huth-Shawcross partnership that was arguably one of the top 3 or 4 centre half pairings in the division last season. I like Woody but I think we need Huth back at centre half for the time being but he is at least getting through a number of 90 minute games. Pulis didn't pick him for the Europa League squad due to the long way we will have to travel for the games. I agree with you about Woody being one of the best in the world on his day. Best English centre half that I have seen in 15 years of watching English football, in my opinion. Upson has arguably been a better signing so far to be fair to him, he has played exceptionally well so far.
Yep, Woody and King are England's best 2 centre backs. Pity they are they way they are! Huth not get a game? Scores goals for fun doesn't he haha. Despite being a dirty prick haha Also - you think you need a bit more creativity in the centre? Seems like you have a lot of defensive midfielders and not enough creativity. A Cabaye type of player lol
It wasn't a case of you couldn't string 2 passes together. It was a case of you not TRYING to string 2 passes together. At every opportunity, obviously under instruction, the ball was hoofed up to Crouch. You have good players in your team who deserve to be a bit more expressive than that
