Tony Pulis has left Stoke City by mutual consent. Hoorah.
Is that view harsh? Yes, I suppose it is because let’s face it Pulis has worked wonders in his second spell at the club. Since 2006, Pulis has masterminded a lengthy stay in the Premier League – six years has to be considered lengthy with the recent problems newly-promoted sides have had – while getting his club into Europe for the first time in 40 years and reaching an FA Cup final.
That is pretty impressive for a team that seemed more in line with the rugby field than the round balled one, and plenty – including me – were ready to jump on the bandwagon where people wanted to shout from the highest peak, roughly 1,000 feet if you compare it to a Ryan Shawcross hoof, that Stoke played the most boring, dispassionate football since the turn of time.
While results were going well, which they were when the Potters got promoted, fans were satisfied. A bottom-half finish where you rarely face the danger of relegation is vaguely successful, especially for a club without huge resources, but this season – Pulis’ sixth after a previous stint with the club between 2002 and 2005 – was rather more precarious. His team dangled on the edge of the drop zone for the final third of the season, seemingly crawling itself through thick terrain attempting to reach the safety barrier of 40 points.
Pulis’ Stoke won just three games out of its last 21, a staggeringly poor run which so nearly sent them back into the Championship. All of this was a large, attractive cue for some Stoke fans to lay bare their qualms with Pulis’ style of play which so many others had repeated over and over. TalkSport’s Adrian Durham was labelled a ‘Stokeist’ by one irate fan who decided he would call up the show actually defending City’s football.
But using that logic, every fan of every club in the Premier League was a ‘Stokeist’. But truly, we were just realists.
It was dreadful. I witnessed my one and only rendition of ‘how to send a football fan to sleep’ – I was in the loud Holte End too – in 2011 when Stoke travelled to Villa Park and drew 1-1 with Aston Villa. It was a terribly dull game, slowed by Stoke’s insistence that a throw in should take longer than a half-time break and keeping the ball on the floor was deemed an illegal act.
Opposition have to adapt to their long-ball tactics and ready itself for a physical battle that actually outweighs what should be accepted. Football is a physical sport, and it should be kept this way. All too often referees blow up for nothing challenges, but Stoke took it too far. They deliberately manhandled opponents to gain an advantage – a set-piece at Upton Park last season springs to mind when they scored after a clear obstruction – and that surely came straight off the training ground, inspired by the former manager himself, Mr. Pulis.
The 55-year-old refused to offer any guarantees that he would stay on next season when fans were growing frustrated, and that now was a clear indication that his job was on the line. Talks with the club’s owner Peter Coates today ended with the decision that Stoke would be overseeing a huge change in the technical set-up at the Britannia Stadium.
One of Coates’ main targets is 36-year-old Phil Neville, who has left Everton after a very successful time at Goodison Park. Neville will assist England Under 21 coach Stuart Pearce this summer during the European Championship in Israel and is giving serious consideration to whether or not he will now retire from the playing arena.
Pulis was the second-longest-serving manager in the Premier League following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement and David Moyes’ move to the new champions, but now he is gone.
Stoke can move on. We can move on. Surely we want all 20 top flight teams playing attractive football, whether it is wholly or just a little. The new Stoke manager, whoever it may be, should be able to do this because it seems Coates is determined to change the blueprint of this club. If that becomes reality, my hoorah will become even louder.
