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Post by Irish Stokie on Feb 14, 2011 0:30:57 GMT
If someone had come up to any Stoke fan during the 23 years of lower league football and offered them top flight football and hoofball the vast, vast majority would have bitten their hand off.
The fact of the matter is that we have achieved a remarkable feat in that we have gone from a very average Champ side to a good Prem side in just 4 years and have improved year on year and look to be improving again this year. We have some key areas we need to improve in, both full backs, a CM and a striker and we will have a team that will continue to improve and become a top half side. I'm delighted with the progress under TP and thankfully it would seem Coates sees the importance of TP to this club.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:31:16 GMT
So it refers to more big spending, rather than any change of approach? Do you trust TP to spend the money wisely on the players who can bring this glory? I ask because you've absolutely despised a number of Tone's big money buys every season. I have little doubt that PC trusts TP implicitly. Expect big signings for attack and midfield - Dave was right when he said these should be priorities. TP does have to get it right though and I can imagine that the Ba catastrophe has really annoyed him. I still think we should be very optimistic about the future prospects of our great club. Midfield has been a priority since before promotion though, and we still haven't come close to getting it right.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:30:52 GMT
We have to spend. If we don't we'll struggle. Wether he spends it on the areas we need or not is a completely different matter. ;D And is the reason why I expected next to bugger all in January.
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:32:59 GMT
I have little doubt that PC trusts TP implicitly. Expect big signings for attack and midfield - Dave was right when he said these should be priorities. TP does have to get it right though and I can imagine that the Ba catastrophe has really annoyed him. I still think we should be very optimistic about the future prospects of our great club. Midfield has been a priority since before promotion though, and we still haven't come close to getting it right. Perhaps we haven't been offering the right sort of incentives to players? I think the wage structure, in particular, will take a great leap forwards this summer.
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Post by Titan Uranus on Feb 14, 2011 0:33:26 GMT
I think Peter Coates looks on TP as his adopted son and will let him carry on in his own peculiar way for so long as he wants to. That's the perceived wisdom, but we really don't know how he's viewing events from on high, do we? How old is he? 72? Maybe he would pull the trigger if he felt things were going awry? What does he class 'success' as over the next 2-3 years? Is he still purely results-oriented? Sons and fathers do sometimes fall out. Coates will base all of his equations on the amount of season ticket sales If they equal or exceed this seasons he will go for it big style Whether TP is part of that plan is a different matter entirely Don't forget that Bet365 is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe at the moment.
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:35:59 GMT
That's the perceived wisdom, but we really don't know how he's viewing events from on high, do we? How old is he? 72? Maybe he would pull the trigger if he felt things were going awry? What does he class 'success' as over the next 2-3 years? Is he still purely results-oriented? Sons and fathers do sometimes fall out. Coates will base all of his equations on the amount of season ticket sales If they equal or exceed this seasons he will go for it big style Whether TP is part of that plan is a different matter entirely Don't forget that Bet365 is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe at the moment. The Coates/Pulis partnership would even survive relegation, I believe it to be so strong. TP will be given funds and an increased wage bill to have a crack at Europe. That will be the plan for the next 3 years.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:38:08 GMT
I have little doubt that PC trusts TP implicitly. Expect big signings for attack and midfield - Dave was right when he said these should be priorities. TP does have to get it right though and I can imagine that the Ba catastrophe has really annoyed him. I still think we should be very optimistic about the future prospects of our great club. Midfield has been a priority since before promotion though, and we still haven't come close to getting it right. 17 million quid and counting I make it! Whitehead-4 million Wilson-4.5 million (that's what the deal was valued at) Arismendi-2.5 million Olofinjana-3 million Tonge-2 million Whelan-500k so that's 16.5 million plus Amdy Faye and maybe 1/2 I've missed. ??? Not one better than Delap. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:38:19 GMT
Coates will base all of his equations on the amount of season ticket sales If they equal or exceed this seasons he will go for it big style Whether TP is part of that plan is a different matter entirely Don't forget that Bet365 is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe at the moment. The Coates/Pulis partnership would even survive relegation, I believe it to be so strong. TP will be given funds and an increased wage bill to have a crack at Europe. That will be the plan for the next 3 years. Yet a crack at Europe was (and maybe still is) realistically there this season and we're shying away from it...
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Post by Titan Uranus on Feb 14, 2011 0:39:18 GMT
Coates will base all of his equations on the amount of season ticket sales If they equal or exceed this seasons he will go for it big style Whether TP is part of that plan is a different matter entirely Don't forget that Bet365 is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe at the moment. The Coates/Pulis partnership would even survive relegation, I believe it to be so strong. TP will be given funds and an increased wage bill to have a crack at Europe. That will be the plan for the next 3 years. FFS ... NOT ANOTHER 3 YEAR PLAN ;D
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:39:30 GMT
Midfield has been a priority since before promotion though, and we still haven't come close to getting it right. 17 million quid and counting I make it! Whitehead-4 million Wilson-4.5 million (that's what the deal was valued at) Arismendi-2.5 million Olofinjana-3 million Tonge-2 million Whelan-500k so that's 16.5 million plus Amdy Faye and maybe 1/2 I've missed. ??? Not one better than Delap. ;D That's all you get for those amounts of money. How much will it cost to capture the likes of Palacios or Parker??
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:40:42 GMT
17 million quid and counting I make it! Whitehead-4 million Wilson-4.5 million (that's what the deal was valued at) Arismendi-2.5 million Olofinjana-3 million Tonge-2 million Whelan-500k so that's 16.5 million plus Amdy Faye and maybe 1/2 I've missed. ??? Not one better than Delap. ;D That's all you get for those amounts of money. How much will it cost to capture the likes of Palacios or Parker?? Well Palacios cost Steve Bruce one million quid, but that's another can of worms entirely...
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:42:08 GMT
17 million quid and counting I make it! Whitehead-4 million Wilson-4.5 million (that's what the deal was valued at) Arismendi-2.5 million Olofinjana-3 million Tonge-2 million Whelan-500k so that's 16.5 million plus Amdy Faye and maybe 1/2 I've missed. ??? Not one better than Delap. ;D That's all you get for those amounts of money. How much will it cost to capture the likes of Palacios or Parker?? That's where a scouting network and a willingness to look abroad comes into the equation. There are bargains to be had, yet we don't want them. Anthony Annan, Chiek Tiote, Yussuf Mulumbu, Mikel Arteta, Michael Bradley a small example of value from abroad that we could afford withing that money and those fees spent. All better players than that shower of shite too.
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:44:08 GMT
That's all you get for those amounts of money. How much will it cost to capture the likes of Palacios or Parker?? That's where a scouting network and a willingness to look abroad comes into the equation. There are bargains to be had, yet we don't want them. Anthony Annan, Chiek Tiote, Yussuf Mulumbu, Mikel Arteta, Michael Bradley a small example of value from abroad that we could afford withing that money and those fees spent. All better players than that shower of shite too. Look abroad? How much did Robinho or da Silva cost? There are as many flops from overseas as successes. Surely tried and tested is a better option when you have the money to buy them.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:46:17 GMT
That's where a scouting network and a willingness to look abroad comes into the equation. There are bargains to be had, yet we don't want them. Anthony Annan, Chiek Tiote, Yussuf Mulumbu, Mikel Arteta, Michael Bradley a small example of value from abroad that we could afford withing that money and those fees spent. All better players than that shower of shite too. Look abroad? How much did Robinho or the Silva cost? There are as many flops from overseas as successes. Surely tried and tested is a better option when you have the money to buy them. The 16.5 million wasted on not getting anyone better than Delap suggests otherwise to me. I think PC realises this as well and it will piss him off. As well as the academy as I alluded to on the last page. It's where the value is.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:46:39 GMT
That's where a scouting network and a willingness to look abroad comes into the equation. There are bargains to be had, yet we don't want them. Anthony Annan, Chiek Tiote, Yussuf Mulumbu, Mikel Arteta, Michael Bradley a small example of value from abroad that we could afford withing that money and those fees spent. All better players than that shower of shite too. Look abroad? How much did Robinho or the Silva cost? There are as many flops from overseas as successes. Surely tried and tested is a better option when you have the money to buy them. Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan.
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Post by FullerMagic on Feb 14, 2011 0:48:15 GMT
That's all you get for those amounts of money. How much will it cost to capture the likes of Palacios or Parker?? That's where a scouting network and a willingness to look abroad comes into the equation. There are bargains to be had, yet we don't want them. Anthony Annan, Chiek Tiote, Yussuf Mulumbu, Mikel Arteta, Michael Bradley a small example of value from abroad that we could afford withing that money and those fees spent. All better players than that shower of shite too. True. N'Zonzi, Charlie Adam, Holden at Bolton too. Then there was that Uruguayan fella at Stoke.....whatever happened to him?
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:48:47 GMT
Look abroad? How much did Robinho or the Silva cost? There are as many flops from overseas as successes. Surely tried and tested is a better option when you have the money to buy them. Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan. Even when we go overseas we often seem to go for the big money. Remy-14 million What's his face who now plays for Marseille too at CB, was a midfielder-10 million Ba-7 million Arismendi-potentially 5 million Ledley-6 million ;D
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:49:42 GMT
Look abroad? How much did Robinho or the Silva cost? There are as many flops from overseas as successes. Surely tried and tested is a better option when you have the money to buy them. Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan. We did take a punt overseas - an expensive one. Where is he these days?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:50:27 GMT
Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan. We did take a punt overseas - an expensive one. Where is he these days? So, what, we fail once and give up? Despite all of the other players brought from overseas who have drastically improved their teams? How about we actually get a scouting network in place? I refer you to the Palacios example yet again.
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Post by FullerMagic on Feb 14, 2011 0:52:24 GMT
Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan. We did take a punt overseas - an expensive one. Where is he these days? There are good scouts and bad scouts, March. And good risks and bad risks. Decent punts and stupid punts. Pulis is on record as saying he only trusts ONE man's judgement in the whole wide world - David Michael Kemp. Anyway, should that disaster put us off forever?
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 0:52:37 GMT
Look at Bayern's list. How many of those are "successes"? You mentioned Palacios as a big money player - he cost Steve Bruce a packet of quavers. There's the rub. I'd rather we take the odd punt overseas then spend another three million on a "proven" Olofinjana or Whelan. We did take a punt overseas - an expensive one. Where is he these days? That's because we need to have knowledge to get these bargains. We haven't unless Pulis is that pig headed that he just doesn't want the buggers. The overseas players we have gone for barring Arismendi are all known and all would have cost millions. Not the bargains that we and PC long for.
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 0:54:36 GMT
We did take a punt overseas - an expensive one. Where is he these days? There are good scouts and bad scouts, March. And good risks and bad risks. Decent punts and stupid punts. Pulis is on record as saying he only trusts ONE man's judgement in the whole wide world - David Michael Kemp. Anyway, should that disaster put us off forever? No, it shouldn't but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will. The Prem is littered with disastrous overseas signings. Most of them disappear without trace and we only get to hear about the minority that work out. I also think the Ba deal and the French bloke (getting senile can't remember name) will have put TP off dealing with players from abroad.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 0:58:22 GMT
There are good scouts and bad scouts, March. And good risks and bad risks. Decent punts and stupid punts. Pulis is on record as saying he only trusts ONE man's judgement in the whole wide world - David Michael Kemp. Anyway, should that disaster put us off forever? No, it shouldn't but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will. The Prem is littered with disastrous overseas signings. Most of them disappear without trace and we only get to hear about the minority that work out. I also think the Ba deal and the French bloke (getting senile can't remember name) will have put TP off dealing with players from abroad. Well that's a depressingly narrow-minded attitude from our manager isn't it?
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Post by The Red and White Baron on Feb 14, 2011 0:59:49 GMT
I've always been a Pulis fan but we need a big summer to further consolidate our position. The team we have now is never getting relegated but to avoid stagnation we should look for a few players in the summer. Quality though, not quantity.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Feb 14, 2011 1:00:00 GMT
But that's where a good scouting network comes into play and then not spending too much on them. I think Arismendi was handled piss poorly too. It's easy to spend lots of money on domestic targets, it takes nous and knowledge to sniff out bargains from abroad. We don't have that it seems. And the European scout we did have (Gary Penrice) now doesn't work for us.
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Post by march4 on Feb 14, 2011 1:02:02 GMT
No, it shouldn't but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will. The Prem is littered with disastrous overseas signings. Most of them disappear without trace and we only get to hear about the minority that work out. I also think the Ba deal and the French bloke (getting senile can't remember name) will have put TP off dealing with players from abroad. Well that's a depressingly narrow-minded attitude from our manager isn't it? Probably, but he likes to know what he is getting and I don't think he travels that well or truly trusts his scouts.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 1:03:25 GMT
Well that's a depressingly narrow-minded attitude from our manager isn't it? Probably, but he likes to know what he is getting and I don't think he travels that well or truly trusts his scouts. It's 2011 for God's sake! Anyway, I'm off to bed. Always a pleasure march, take it easy
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Post by OldStokie on Feb 14, 2011 2:15:19 GMT
If that really is the case then questioning if he's taken us as far as he can is entirely valid after all. I'm with march! He usually does recover. But in the case of our promotion season he got damn lucky. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was just football but when Griff got injured at Coventry we went on to win the next 3 and draw with Leicester. To me Griff was the obvious weak link (along with Pugh) at full back but TP did nowt about it. We actually only won 1 in 8 previously but then Griff got injured and we suddenly win 3 and get that draw. Some people will read this as me thinking I'm better than TP and shit like that, I DON'T. It's just what I thought was the problem and then when he was gone we won. Was it a question of luck? The simple answer is we don't know, we could have easily still won those games. I think the question of taking us far as he can, can only be valid after this summer. If he doesn't/can't address the areas that need addressing then I think people will get pissed off. This summer will be massive and he has done enough to deserve a shot at it. This summer is the acid test to see if TP's plans match with the fans. Actually, Bayern, the problems (that every supporter could see was obvious, but Pulis couldn't) was Griffin (who was playing awful at right back) and Ameobi (who was a disaster like Diao is now), and not Pugh. Both Ameobi and Griff were injured on the same day; Pulis was forced to change the side, and, wa-la, we improved drastically and went onto automatic promotion. I have no doubts at all that had those players not been injured, we would not now be in The Prem. OS.
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Post by FullerMagic on Feb 14, 2011 9:28:31 GMT
There are good scouts and bad scouts, March. And good risks and bad risks. Decent punts and stupid punts. Pulis is on record as saying he only trusts ONE man's judgement in the whole wide world - David Michael Kemp. Anyway, should that disaster put us off forever? No, it shouldn't but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will. The Prem is littered with disastrous overseas signings. Most of them disappear without trace and we only get to hear about the minority that work out. I also think the Ba deal and the French bloke (getting senile can't remember name) will have put TP off dealing with players from abroad. Yep - we certainly don't want any more disastrous overseas signings like Davide Kitsonio, Andres Daviesini, Michel Tongo or Daniele Collinsinho.
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Post by comeoneidur on Feb 14, 2011 9:36:52 GMT
The enjoyment for me is the fact that we get to see stoke, our stoke, play against fantastic teams and players, isnt that what we wanted for the prem? Does it matter how we play as long as it works? I would like us to be able to adapt to a game, im happy to stick to a general long ball game and more direct way of play as it works for us, but what i would like is the ability to adapt when the game isnt working and for pulis to not worry too much when going away. His move to put whelan on at brum for pennant was an attempt to save a point, in the end it cost us one, which is sad, but, not the end of the world. Im happy to stick with pulis and his methodology when it works, all i ask is that in a game, when it doesnt he doesnt just sit there and hope it will, which he didnt at sunderland, the brave move to bring on walters worked
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