English Premier League 2012-13

The "Messi couldn't handle a cold Wednesday night at Stoke" phrase is the most disgusting and overused phrase in Football.

 

'Home field advantage' is an Americanism, isn't it? Rule 1, don't apply Americanism's to football! :smiley-laughing002:

Stoke being a tough place to play is not a myth, this season they haven't lived up to their usual standards but the stats bare out the fact that they were one of the best teams in the country at home in the two seasons beforehand.

No one is bigging Stoke up as 'ultra competitive', either, I honestly don't know where you get that impression from. They're a mediocre mid table football club a la Everton, Liverpool, Newcastle, etc, apart from the fact that they don't quite have the history or pulling power of the aforementioned clubs, which makes their position alongside them over recent years even more impressive.

I've never understood this 'going nowhere, you deserve the sack' argument. What would QPR, Reading and Wigan give to be 'going nowhere'?

That is the point, Pulis was doing a good job, people can't fawn over Moyes for midtable consistency and pillory Pulis for the same thing, he may have spent a bit of money but it's not as if the club can attract world beaters.

Stoke shouldn't expect to be competing for honours in the short term, this blithering entitlement culture is ridiculous. 'Ooh, poor us, we're not getting silky tippy tappy football, Tony Pulis is such a bad manager, oh dear, route one, how awful'. What a load of sodding rubbish, Stoke are in a position that would be envied by every single club in the lower reaches of football

Stability and consistency are the flavour of the month after Moyes' appointment at United, and suddenly a man who embodies the two cliches perfectly is being hounded? It's so two-faced.

Europa League qualification is about the high water mark for a club like Stoke, Pulis was tailor made for them and they'll regret loosing him once they start slipping towards the relegation mire.

Roberto Martinez made it to an FA Cup final and won, yet got relegated. A huge chunk of football fandom will froth at the mouth at the suggestion of him being sacked, despite the fact that Steve Bruce objectively did a better job at Wigan.

Pulis reached an FA Cup final recently, but because he isn't perceived to be an 'exciting' or 'novel' manager, he deserves the boot? What bosh.

 

"what bosh"

I love some of your sayings Fawlty :smiley-laughing002:

 

I'm telling you, you can't read his posts without thinking if a top hat and monocle

 

I know! It's brilliant

 

It's a concept which is used in "football" but with different terminology. And they weren't "one of the best", they were just stronger than other mid-table sides. I think the best year would have only put them in the top 8 or so, but given that it shows an inability to play on the road wouldn't it? And you're forgetting that the year before they were awful. So 2 poor years, one above average years, and one quite good year hardly deserve the "cold night in Stoke" myth. And if you want to play dumb that the media don't play it up as some kind of fortress then there's not much helping.

And they're not close to Everton or Liverpool and only are close to Newcastle due to the utter incomptetency of their front office.

Which is why it would have been idiocy to sack him after one, two, even three years. It was by mutual consent, I think both agreed that nothing was improving and, if anything, it was getting worse. Pulis will fall on his feet.

Go find the average position of Everton and Stoke over the past 5 years and see if they're comparable while spending more than Moyes.

But there's been a regression and no improvement. I fail to see how asking for improvement is looking for tiki takka. It happens all the time, a club and a manager are a good fit and then it goes stale. He did great to get them promoted and where they are now, it's not as if they were only up one year. They're an established lower-mid table side. It's clear that Pulis can't get them any farther so why not try? Nobody's expecting them to try for a CL spot but any improvement is something to go for.

Moyes consistently finished higher (much higher) with (absurdly) a lower budget.

Stoke's distance between them and relegation in the last 5 years:

11 points, 17 points, 7 points, 9 points, 6 points. What is your definition of slipping?

Again, the resources - Martinez has had less than just about any PL club recently. Any success at a club like that should be considered amazing. Saying that, Bruce did a very good job there. You're also forgetting that Pulis wasn't really sacked in the way that some others have been.

 

Come on Diegan, mutual consent is a football euphemism for sacked, it's used purely for the benefit of the lawyers sorting through all of the messy contractual stuff.

It's akin to 'gardening leave', a manager on gardening leave hasn't been relieved of his duties so he can tend to his pot plants!

My point about that FA Cup win is that it has made Martinez (who I'm a big fan of, incidentally) bullet proof, in spite of his under-performance in the league. Pragmatism may not be the philosophy de rigueur nowadays but pragmatic football could have saved Wigan from relegation.

Pulis achieved a similar feat in getting his team to the final, but the Man City side he had to face was a well oiled machine firing on all cylinders, not the unravelling rabble of disaffected, effete nancy boys that Wigan were pitted against.

If Wigan had of lost the final, getting there would have still represented progress, yet Stoke's feat is written off as irrelevant on the progress front by Pulis' army of detractors.

All I'm saying to the Stoke fans that rallied against him is this, be careful what you wish for.

The specific gripe of the multitudes who complained throughout the season on 606 et al was the style of the football, though.

This is my problem, why is it clear that he can't? He's got as much a chance of progressing them as any other manager that Stoke can attract, which is why getting rid of him is so short sighted.

Stoke fans are searching for something that they've no real right to, there aren't a hundred Michael Laudrup's floating about ready to transform the fortunes of every mediocre mid table side in the Premiership.

 

It's pretty * stupid to give Pulis the heave ho. He's turned Stoke into a steady Premiership club.

Look at what happened to Bolton after Allardyce. That's what I see here for Stoke's future.

 

Next Stoke manager then? I'd love it to be Ian Holloway:icon_mrgreen:

 

Rather he got promoted with Palace tbh.

 

#EFC manager shortlist according to @SkySports: Neville, Weir, Stubbs, Pereira, Laudrup, Mackay, Di Matteo and Martinez.

 

Laudrup would never join Everton. No point.

 

Rio Ferdinand signs a one-year deal at Manchester United

 

It looks like Mark Hughes will be getting the Stoke City job. I think he could do a good job there if they give him time. Knowing the way the EPL works, he'll come in and get off to a slow start then find himself under pressure by September and sacked by Christmas.

I hate the short-termism that exists down there.

 

I totally disagree. If Stoke City are consistently finishing mid-table in the EPL then they are punching above their weight. Finishing safely in mid-table in England's top league is success for them and it should be viewed as such. Pulis also took them to an FA Cup final, something they had NEVER achieved before.

They will rue the day they parted company with Tony Pulis.

 

Mike Phelan and Eric Steele (goalkeeping coach) have been sacked bu Manchester United. Looks like Moyes will be bringing in his own backroom staff.

 

I didn't realise Mick McCarthy had been moonlighting as a goalkeeping coach under a different alias...

 

How the * does this guy keep getting jobs,he is totally useless honestly somebody must be putting a word in for him because he has made a cows * of every club he has been near