9 defeats from 15 without Pennant & Matty starting

[luke45]

Yet Pulis still can't identify the problem, It's really hard to fathom isn't it?

By the standards of this messageboard, I'm probably in the Pulis rimmer category, I've defended him numerous times in the past on here when people have slated him, but how can anyone defend some of his decisions lately?

Kemp said today that we can't afford the " luxury " of starting two proper wingers from the off, in what sane world can't we afford to use a method that has seen us lose 2 out of the 10 league games we've used it in this season? Our wingers were the key to our success last-season, what has possibly gone on in Pulis's head to see otherwise?

We've frequently talked on here about Pulis's " attacking 4 and defensive 6 " system over the years, where the two central midfielders main responsibility is to add protection to the back-four, and the wingers and front men are there to form our attacking 4, are we even playing as an attacking 4 at the moment? I don't think we are.

The more I watch us play, the more I believe that Pulis's system is now an attacking 3 and defensive 7, with one of the two wingers included purely to add protection to the full-back behind him.

I don't think you can be accused of being complacent if you find yourself asking why we have spent 22 million in the Summer and seen our style of play regress as a result. Towards the end of last season there was obvious signs of evolution in our play, epitomised in our 5-0 victory over Bolton with all goals coming from open play, yet all that progress seems to have disappeared again.

Yet again today Pulis left the substitutions too late, it was 66 minutes into the game until he finally conceded his method wasn't working, granted he made changes and we pulled a goal back, but whose to say we couldn't have got a point or more if he had bitten the bullet at HT and made the changes?

There can't have been more than 1 or 2 times in Pulis's history as Stoke manager where he has made a tactical HT change, exactly how bad do we have to perform in the first-half for this to occur?

We are on a very worrying run of form at the moment, 5 league games without a win, with 4 defeats and 2 goals scored in those games. I don't think we need to worry about relegation this season, but given the money we have spent, it wasn't unrealistic to expect us to challenge for a top 10 finish, and at the moment that seems very hard to imagine.

The next two home games against Swansea and Norwich are going to make or break our season, because after that we have Chelsea, Spurs and Man City, two of which are away from home.

I'll keep the faith in Pulis, because last time we suffered 4 defeats on the bounce he turned things around and we went on a good run of form, but at this moment in time he rightly deserves the criticism he is going to receive.

[robboleek]

Agreed!