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Post by Skankmonkey on Oct 5, 2015 16:37:50 GMT
Feels to me like its calming down somewhat now. There will always be outliers on either side of the argument but not so long ago this thread would have easily been 23 pages long rather than 3. Early days... I know mate! I'm just glad I didn't suggest I'd feck off up the Vale if it reached 23 or anything extreme like that. That will teach me for looking to the best in people. <smiley> Oh well, optimism eh... (EDIT) and I've just made it 5. What a twat.
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Post by Davef on Oct 5, 2015 16:40:10 GMT
Now in The Oatcake itself the editorial for the West Brom game was "deadly serious" when it said lets leave TP in the past. I totally agree. The issue after though it couldnt resist to have a "final" word. Those final words keep appearing on here. Why cant people just stop fishing with the digs and starting up debate after debate for no reason??? That's not really fair. The "final" word you're talking about was comment about the game and what went on during it. Did you really expect the events of the day not to merit an opinion in the next issue of the fanzine? Rest assured the only other mention of West Brom and their manager you're likely to read from an editorial point of view is after we've played at The Hawthorns.
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Post by pyrus on Oct 5, 2015 16:44:04 GMT
The way some Stoke fans have talked about TP on this forum has always been a disgrace. I cant and wont ever understand the abuse he's had and you cant say its down to that one West Brom game its been going on years. Id understand it if we'd been a purist,passing football club throughout our history but we havnt. We used to mock West Brom and the like who played passing football. "Were Stoke City...we'll play how we want" echoed around abooming Britannia Stadium. All I want is a winning team and yes I think if you can win with a little more style then who wouldnt want to see that. Mark Hughes has been brilliant for Stoke but that dosnt mean I hate or could ever hate Tony Pulis. I could understand it if he'd walked out on us,taken us down,sold our best players,belittled our area or our supporters but no...he hasnt has he? Jesus Ive seen Cotterill get less stick than TP. Also past players are now getting hammered on twitter and on here.Players like Etherington,Griffin,Higginbotham. Now Id understand if these players had taken us down to the third division or something but these were our heroes who helped us live the dream. Now in The Oatcake itself the editorial for the West Brom game was "deadly serious" when it said lets leave TP in the past. I totally agree. The issue after though it couldnt resist to have a "final" word. Those final words keep appearing on here. Why cant people just stop fishing with the digs and starting up debate after debate for no reason??? Pulis is a benchmark. He came, he changed everything, he got us up and kept us up. He did it with a style of play that defined Stoke at the time and it is hard to shake off. Just last week Konoplyanka was commenting that he didn't come to the Premiership because he wasn't 2m tall and he could do more than just head the ball. Since we were the Premiership club that was in for him, that suggests that two years into Hughes tenure, we are still defined by the Pulis years. So of course we are glad that he did what he did and we are where we are, but most of us are glad that he is no longer here. Of course we sang 'we'll play how we want'. We lionised the style of play because we are fans and you don't just take the shit that every team and every pundit spits at you. Of course we loved going to Wembley, playing in Europe and we loved pissing off Wenger. That doesn't change. It is the point we reached under Pulis, it is the point we want to surpass under Hughes and yes you leave it behind. I think we have by and large. However, when you see WBA fans going through the same thing, it is a fair observation to say 'Thank fuck it's them. It really was shit 90% of the time, wasn't it'
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Post by trickydicky73 on Oct 5, 2015 17:15:52 GMT
They are deluded, how many away games did they win before, they have won two this season already, and were playing one of the form teams in the division. It goes past just results though and that's what many just can't accept It's all about football strangulation and hoping for a set piece There's getting to mid table and there's getting to mid table and all for £40 a shot I watched the Palace-W.B.A match the other day and Robbie Savage said "It can't be any fun(as a midfielder) watching the ball sailing over your head all day". Hoddle was equally scathing. I can understand Pulis playing how he did when we first got into the Premier League, but there is no excuse for it now. West Brom have some decent players who are being shackled. Pulis had no intention of playing football on Saturday and deseved to get nothing for his approach. I am ecstatic that we have moved on.
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Post by Malcolm Clarke on Oct 5, 2015 19:04:04 GMT
We each speak for ourselves, but for me, when it comes to Stoke City, it IS all about winning, or rather it's all about points - getting as many as possible. I would rather see a stalemate 0-0 than an exciting 4-3 defeat any day of the week. I thought TP did a tremendous job at Stoke, getting us up, keeping us up, keeping us mid-table ish; taking us to the Cup Final and through that to a European tour which I loved. He left us and the season after deservedly won the PL manager of the season. But he was replaced by a manager who got us our highest ever points total in the PL - brilliant. In short, I'm strongly pro-TP; strongly pro-LMH; strongly pro-Stoke City and strongly pro our chairman who, in recent years at least, has shown that he is very good at picking managers. As a one-off, we'd all prefer a 0-0 to any kind of defeat, but for me attempting to win with one set-piece then surrendering possession to the opposition to keep them out for the rest of the match was utterly depressing. For some of us, football is meant to be an entertainment. I suspect it's the same for the majority of football fans all over the world, and that's why it's the most popular sport in the world. I genuinely got to the point where I was walking to the ground with the same enthusiasm as I walk to work on a Monday morning - believe me, that's not very enthusiastically at all. I'd probably got one more season in me before I jacked it in, and that's after suffering everything the club had chucked at us for the past 40 years. I could put up with it when we had no choice - I saw the club like a sick relative that needed caring for. The stuff we saw under Pulis was deliberate, and I think that's why there's a lot of bile towards someone who achieved so much. Just my opinion. I respect your different perspective to mine. All I would say is that in more than half a century of watching Stoke there have been many many seasons where the football , not to mention the results, sometimes at 2 league levels below where TP took us to , was far worse than anything we saw under him in the PL. And any number of managers who couldn't even remotely approach his ability. If I didn't give up then I certainly wouldn't even remotely consider it under him in the PL. But I do find the continued obsession with him on here even after he's gone with new threads , historical analyses about events at other clubs even before he came to Stoke etc , to be rather bizarre. He's left us and moved on and so should we. And We've got another good manager to support.
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Post by whydelilah on Oct 5, 2015 19:35:52 GMT
As a one-off, we'd all prefer a 0-0 to any kind of defeat, but for me attempting to win with one set-piece then surrendering possession to the opposition to keep them out for the rest of the match was utterly depressing. For some of us, football is meant to be an entertainment. I suspect it's the same for the majority of football fans all over the world, and that's why it's the most popular sport in the world. I genuinely got to the point where I was walking to the ground with the same enthusiasm as I walk to work on a Monday morning - believe me, that's not very enthusiastically at all. I'd probably got one more season in me before I jacked it in, and that's after suffering everything the club had chucked at us for the past 40 years. I could put up with it when we had no choice - I saw the club like a sick relative that needed caring for. The stuff we saw under Pulis was deliberate, and I think that's why there's a lot of bile towards someone who achieved so much. Just my opinion. I respect your different perspective to mine. All I would say is that in more than half a century of watching Stoke there have been many many seasons where the football , not to mention the results, sometimes at 2 league levels below where TP took us to , was far worse than anything we saw under him in the PL. And any number of managers who couldn't even remotely approach his ability. If I didn't give up then I certainly wouldn't even remotely consider it under him in the PL. But I do find the continued obsession with him on here even after he's gone with new threads , historical analyses about events at other clubs even before he came to Stoke etc , to be rather bizarre. He's left us and moved on and so should we. And We've got another good manager to support. Leaving TP to one side for a moment Malcolm, and looking solely at the point you make about the results/entertainment debate, I have to disagree. Of course there has to be a balance. You can't go all out to score goals whilst completely neglecting the defensively side of the game, as Wigan seemed to do when they eventually went down. But surely entertainment has to be top of the priority list for supporters? We're not Chairmen, stakeholders, or managers of a business, we're passionate supporters. The lifeblood of the game. For many of us it was our fathers favourite past time and if we're lucky enough, we'll get to share it with our kids when the time arrives. I will enever accept that results are king over the performance and entrainment served up. Of course, throughout the course of a season a team will win ugly and scrape out results. In fact, that's normally the sign of a good side. I still expect a team to go out and play a bit over the course of 38 games or whatever a season may hold. We did fantastic to get promotion and even better to fight and battle to secure our place in the top flight but we were always going to reach a point where expectations were heightened. The squad has been invested in heavily and that should be reflected on the pitch. This isn't a dig at Pulis either. He gave me some of my best ever moments as a Stoke fan and will rightly go down as a legend. It was absolutely the right decision to get rid of him though. The results had deteriorated over a long period of time and the performances were absolutely dire. He probably would have kept us up again had he stayed but all the enjoyment of match day had sapped away and we should expect more than that. He got backed heavily and, truth be told, completely lost his way in the end. Hughes came in and was a breath of fresh air. He gave us much needed impetus, positivity and bought back the feelgood factor. The parting of the ways probably helped TP too as he went to Palace and inherited a team full of pace and trickery and utilised it in a way which he failed to do in his last 18 months at Stoke. Results are obviously massively important but it will never take precedence over enjoyment for me. I want to be entertained. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want the Arnie's, Bojan's and Shaqiri's and I want to see them tearing the opposition apart. It costs too much money and takes up too much of our time for it simply to be about the result. When my lads old enough to come with me in a few years time it won't matter to me what league we're in. I had to put the hard yards in during some of the turgid stuff served up in League One so I don't see why he should have it easy! It's a massice cliche but being a Stoke fan is something that's in the blood. When you invest in something with such emotion it can never be just about the result. I'd rate some of the Championship moments with the magic of Ric over some of the utterly miserable periods in the Premier League when we offered next to nothing in terms of entertainment.
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Post by njkk on Oct 5, 2015 20:01:18 GMT
I have nothing but respect for TP for what he did for us and his unstinting work helping local charities and must say its still strange to see him wearing another teams colours, that said during his last season I'd become bored with us trying to do nothing more than pinch a win, I spent a lot of the time looking at the scoreboard and thinking "Christ is there still that long left of this game?"
So for me the time had come for him to go, I'm enjoying it again now. It still isn't perfect football is never like that but we're doing great under MH
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Post by pyrus on Oct 5, 2015 20:06:41 GMT
I respect your different perspective to mine. All I would say is that in more than half a century of watching Stoke there have been many many seasons where the football , not to mention the results, sometimes at 2 league levels below where TP took us to , was far worse than anything we saw under him in the PL. And any number of managers who couldn't even remotely approach his ability. If I didn't give up then I certainly wouldn't even remotely consider it under him in the PL. But I do find the continued obsession with him on here even after he's gone with new threads , historical analyses about events at other clubs even before he came to Stoke etc , to be rather bizarre. He's left us and moved on and so should we. And We've got another good manager to support. Leaving TP to one side for a moment Malcolm, and looking solely at the point you make about the results/entertainment debate, I have to disagree. Of course there has to be a balance. You can't go all out to score goals whilst completely neglecting the defensively side of the game, as Wigan seemed to do when they eventually went down. But surely entertainment has to be top of the priority list for supporters? We're not Chairmen, stakeholders, or managers of a business, we're passionate supporters. The lifeblood of the game. For many of us it was our fathers favourite past time and if we're lucky enough, we'll get to share it with our kids when the time arrives. I will enever accept that results are king over the performance and entrainment served up. Of course, throughout the course of a season a team will win ugly and scrape out results. In fact, that's normally the sign of a good side. I still expect a team to go out and play a bit over the course of 38 games or whatever a season may hold. We did fantastic to get promotion and even better to fight and battle to secure our place in the top flight but we were always going to reach a point where expectations were heightened. The squad has been invested in heavily and that should be reflected on the pitch. This isn't a dig at Pulis either. He gave me some of my best ever moments as a Stoke fan and will rightly go down as a legend. It was absolutely the right decision to get rid of him though. The results had deteriorated over a long period of time and the performances were absolutely dire. He probably would have kept us up again had he stayed but all the enjoyment of match day had sapped away and we should expect more than that. He got backed heavily and, truth be told, completely lost his way in the end. Hughes came in and was a breath of fresh air. He gave us much needed impetus, positivity and bought back the feelgood factor. The parting of the ways probably helped TP too as he went to Palace and inherited a team full of pace and trickery and utilised it in a way which he failed to do in his last 18 months at Stoke. Results are obviously massively important but it will never take precedence over enjoyment for me. I want to be entertained. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want the Arnie's, Bojan's and Shaqiri's and I want to see them tearing the opposition apart. It costs too much money and takes up too much of our time for it simply to be about the result. When my lads old enough to come with me in a few years time it won't matter to me what league we're in. I had to put the hard yards in during some of the turgid stuff served up in League One so I don't see why he should have it easy! It's a massice cliche but being a Stoke fan is something that's in the blood. When you invest in something with such emotion it can never be just about the result. I'd rate some of the Championship moments with the magic of Ric over some of the utterly miserable periods in the Premier League when we offered next to nothing in terms of entertainment. I would love to agree with Malcolm, mainly because he's Malcolm, but I don't think I do. I remember turning up at the Brit to find teams with Woodgate playing right back, with Shotton on the wing while Pennant was on the bench and in spite of everything, Danny Collins would walk onto the pitch with the rest of them. It was a baffling time. Even when we won, it felt a bit like we lost; the pundits, other fans and reporters were scathing and although I revelled in us being an upstart of a club, in the last of Pulis's seasons, I stopped going and only used to watch us on MOTD if we won. The way I see it... Obviously a flamboyant win like the 6-1 Liverpool result is what you want - I would count our 5-0 over Bolton at Wembley in the same bracket, it was a shame it was followed by our usual turgid performance in the final. Next come draws; they tend to be frustrating affairs, no matter how they're played, but with a bit of guile and effort, particularly against a big club, and away from home, it is something you can enjoy. I would also say that a skin of the teeth loss, with all guns blazing can give you an emmense amount of pride. Below these sorts of games, it's the static thud and blunder 'doing a professional job' performances. You accept these once in a while, but a whole season of them - it's like a mood-Hoover; it sucks you of the will to live after a while. Sorry Malcolm, I'll take what Pulis did for us, but three points is not always just three points. Some types of win are more equal than others.
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Post by Malcolm Clarke on Oct 6, 2015 11:26:08 GMT
I respect your different perspective to mine. All I would say is that in more than half a century of watching Stoke there have been many many seasons where the football , not to mention the results, sometimes at 2 league levels below where TP took us to , was far worse than anything we saw under him in the PL. And any number of managers who couldn't even remotely approach his ability. If I didn't give up then I certainly wouldn't even remotely consider it under him in the PL. But I do find the continued obsession with him on here even after he's gone with new threads , historical analyses about events at other clubs even before he came to Stoke etc , to be rather bizarre. He's left us and moved on and so should we. And We've got another good manager to support. Leaving TP to one side for a moment Malcolm, and looking solely at the point you make about the results/entertainment debate, I have to disagree. Of course there has to be a balance. You can't go all out to score goals whilst completely neglecting the defensively side of the game, as Wigan seemed to do when they eventually went down. But surely entertainment has to be top of the priority list for supporters? We're not Chairmen, stakeholders, or managers of a business, we're passionate supporters. The lifeblood of the game. For many of us it was our fathers favourite past time and if we're lucky enough, we'll get to share it with our kids when the time arrives. I will enever accept that results are king over the performance and entrainment served up. Of course, throughout the course of a season a team will win ugly and scrape out results. In fact, that's normally the sign of a good side. I still expect a team to go out and play a bit over the course of 38 games or whatever a season may hold. We did fantastic to get promotion and even better to fight and battle to secure our place in the top flight but we were always going to reach a point where expectations were heightened. The squad has been invested in heavily and that should be reflected on the pitch. This isn't a dig at Pulis either. He gave me some of my best ever moments as a Stoke fan and will rightly go down as a legend. It was absolutely the right decision to get rid of him though. The results had deteriorated over a long period of time and the performances were absolutely dire. He probably would have kept us up again had he stayed but all the enjoyment of match day had sapped away and we should expect more than that. He got backed heavily and, truth be told, completely lost his way in the end. Hughes came in and was a breath of fresh air. He gave us much needed impetus, positivity and bought back the feelgood factor. The parting of the ways probably helped TP too as he went to Palace and inherited a team full of pace and trickery and utilised it in a way which he failed to do in his last 18 months at Stoke. Results are obviously massively important but it will never take precedence over enjoyment for me. I want to be entertained. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want the Arnie's, Bojan's and Shaqiri's and I want to see them tearing the opposition apart. It costs too much money and takes up too much of our time for it simply to be about the result. When my lads old enough to come with me in a few years time it won't matter to me what league we're in. I had to put the hard yards in during some of the turgid stuff served up in League One so I don't see why he should have it easy! It's a massice cliche but being a Stoke fan is something that's in the blood. When you invest in something with such emotion it can never be just about the result. I'd rate some of the Championship moments with the magic of Ric over some of the utterly miserable periods in the Premier League when we offered next to nothing in terms of entertainment. That's a pretty good piece of writing whyd . On reflection, I sort of half agree with you. I take a very different view when I'm watching Stoke to when I'm watching a game as a neutral, either live or on TV. For me, when it's Stoke, the result is the only thing which really matters. If you can get it by a 6-1 rather than a 1-0 then, of course, so much the better, but better the scrappy 1-0 than say a 3-3. But I also think, as is often the case on this board, there is a tendency to see things as black and white when the reality is multiple shades of grey. What gives fans "entertainment" ? ( although for me Stoke winning is 'entertainment' by definition and I feel good when it happens, whatever happened in the game). It is presumably goal scoring opportunities and penalty box action. But that can happen in different ways. Rory hurling a throw into the box or a long punt from Ryan or Huth aimed at Kenwyn or Mama Sidibe to flick it on for Fuller or whoever, to run onto, can be more exciting that our back 4 repeatedly passing it around between them in our own half which we often do at the moment (which sometimes both bores me and worries me silly - it has been interesting this season that there have been quite a few PL goals conceeded, not by us, by defenders messing around rather than getting rid) . I rather agree with Peter Coates when he said what matters is not whether it's a long ball or a short ball but whether it's a good ball. But like you I also look forward to the prospect of players like Arnie, Bojan and hopefully Shaq ( if and when he produces the form we know he's capable of) creating those chances. But no-one could say that, for example, Fuller or Etherington, two of TP's stalwarts, were not also exciting players. Football matches are won by scoring more goals than the opposition and drawn by not conceeding more goals than the opposition. We are not, thankfully, like rugby where you get bonus points for extra tries. Therefore the only "good football" in my view is football which increases the probability of doing those things. That's why I think all these "possession" stats are often irrelevant, and the expression "a footballing side" is near meaningless. It's where you have the possession and what you do with it that matters. Last season we got our highest points total in the PL , so in that sense by my definition it was the best football we have played in the PL - long may it continue.
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Post by Malcolm Clarke on Oct 6, 2015 11:34:11 GMT
I would love to agree with Malcolm, mainly because he's Malcolm, That is a thoroughly commendable state of mind which I would urge you to adopt at all times in the future
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Post by thevoid on Oct 6, 2015 11:43:28 GMT
The way some Stoke fans have talked about TP on this forum has always been a disgrace. I cant and wont ever understand the abuse he's had and you cant say its down to that one West Brom game its been going on years. Id understand it if we'd been a purist,passing football club throughout our history but we havnt. We used to mock West Brom and the like who played passing football. "Were Stoke City...we'll play how we want" echoed around abooming Britannia Stadium. All I want is a winning team and yes I think if you can win with a little more style then who wouldnt want to see that. Mark Hughes has been brilliant for Stoke but that dosnt mean I hate or could ever hate Tony Pulis. I could understand it if he'd walked out on us,taken us down,sold our best players,belittled our area or our supporters but no...he hasnt has he? Jesus Ive seen Cotterill get less stick than TP. Also past players are now getting hammered on twitter and on here.Players like Etherington,Griffin,Higginbotham. Now Id understand if these players had taken us down to the third division or something but these were our heroes who helped us live the dream. Now in The Oatcake itself the editorial for the West Brom game was "deadly serious" when it said lets leave TP in the past. I totally agree. The issue after though it couldnt resist to have a "final" word. Those final words keep appearing on here. Why cant people just stop fishing with the digs and starting up debate after debate for no reason??? It's not so much 'hating' TP, as a lot of people just couldn't warm to him.
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Post by Pugsley on Oct 6, 2015 12:04:52 GMT
It's not just about entertainment is it? We all want to win at any costs. The problem with some of the sides Pulis sent out, most of the time away from home, is that they went out with zero AMBITION to win a game of football. To me that's scandalous given the amount of money supporters shell out. Valencia was a case in point - he banged the drum about getting out there in numbers yet he had no intention of trying to win the game.
I can't have the bloke, end of.
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Post by jarhead on Oct 6, 2015 12:07:04 GMT
It's not just about entertainment is it? We all want to win at any costs. The problem with some of the sides Pulis sent out, most of the time away from home, is that they went out with zero AMBITION to win a game of football. To me that's scandalous given the amount of money supporters shell out. Valencia was a case in point - he banged the drum about getting out there in numbers yet he had no intention of trying to win the game. I can't have the bloke, end of. Ditto
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Post by Titan Uranus on Oct 6, 2015 12:15:00 GMT
Leaving TP to one side for a moment Malcolm, and looking solely at the point you make about the results/entertainment debate, I have to disagree. Of course there has to be a balance. You can't go all out to score goals whilst completely neglecting the defensively side of the game, as Wigan seemed to do when they eventually went down. But surely entertainment has to be top of the priority list for supporters? We're not Chairmen, stakeholders, or managers of a business, we're passionate supporters. The lifeblood of the game. For many of us it was our fathers favourite past time and if we're lucky enough, we'll get to share it with our kids when the time arrives. I will enever accept that results are king over the performance and entrainment served up. Of course, throughout the course of a season a team will win ugly and scrape out results. In fact, that's normally the sign of a good side. I still expect a team to go out and play a bit over the course of 38 games or whatever a season may hold. We did fantastic to get promotion and even better to fight and battle to secure our place in the top flight but we were always going to reach a point where expectations were heightened. The squad has been invested in heavily and that should be reflected on the pitch. This isn't a dig at Pulis either. He gave me some of my best ever moments as a Stoke fan and will rightly go down as a legend. It was absolutely the right decision to get rid of him though. The results had deteriorated over a long period of time and the performances were absolutely dire. He probably would have kept us up again had he stayed but all the enjoyment of match day had sapped away and we should expect more than that. He got backed heavily and, truth be told, completely lost his way in the end. Hughes came in and was a breath of fresh air. He gave us much needed impetus, positivity and bought back the feelgood factor. The parting of the ways probably helped TP too as he went to Palace and inherited a team full of pace and trickery and utilised it in a way which he failed to do in his last 18 months at Stoke. Results are obviously massively important but it will never take precedence over enjoyment for me. I want to be entertained. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want the Arnie's, Bojan's and Shaqiri's and I want to see them tearing the opposition apart. It costs too much money and takes up too much of our time for it simply to be about the result. When my lads old enough to come with me in a few years time it won't matter to me what league we're in. I had to put the hard yards in during some of the turgid stuff served up in League One so I don't see why he should have it easy! It's a massice cliche but being a Stoke fan is something that's in the blood. When you invest in something with such emotion it can never be just about the result. I'd rate some of the Championship moments with the magic of Ric over some of the utterly miserable periods in the Premier League when we offered next to nothing in terms of entertainment. That's a pretty good piece of writing whyd . On reflection, I sort of half agree with you. I take a very different view when I'm watching Stoke to when I'm watching a game as a neutral, either live or on TV. For me, when it's Stoke, the result is the only thing which really matters. If you can get it by a 6-1 rather than a 1-0 then, of course, so much the better, but better the scrappy 1-0 than say a 3-3. But I also think, as is often the case on this board, there is a tendency to see things as black and white when the reality is multiple shades of grey. What gives fans "entertainment" ? ( although for me Stoke winning is 'entertainment' by definition and I feel good when it happens, whatever happened in the game). It is presumably goal scoring opportunities and penalty box action. But that can happen in different ways. Rory hurling a throw into the box or a long punt from Ryan or Huth aimed at Kenwyn or Mama Sidibe to flick it on for Fuller or whoever, to run onto, can be more exciting that our back 4 repeatedly passing it around between them in our own half which we often do at the moment (which sometimes both bores me and worries me silly - it has been interesting this season that there have been quite a few PL goals conceeded, not by us, by defenders messing around rather than getting rid) . I rather agree with Peter Coates when he said what matters is not whether it's a long ball or a short ball but whether it's a good ball. But like you I also look forward to the prospect of players like Arnie, Bojan and hopefully Shaq ( if and when he produces the form we know he's capable of) creating those chances. But no-one could say that, for example, Fuller or Etherington, two of TP's stalwarts, were not also exciting players. Football matches are won by scoring more goals than the opposition and drawn by not conceeding more goals than the opposition. We are not, thankfully, like rugby where you get bonus points for extra tries. Therefore the only "good football" in my view is football which increases the probability of doing those things. That's why I think all these "possession" stats are often irrelevant, and the expression "a footballing side" is near meaningless. It's where you have the possession and what you do with it that matters. Last season we got our highest points total in the PL , so in that sense by my definition it was the best football we have played in the PL - long may it continue. Just as a matter of interest... Did you agree with the sacking of TP?
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Post by cousindupree on Oct 6, 2015 12:16:20 GMT
It's not just about entertainment is it? We all want to win at any costs. The problem with some of the sides Pulis sent out, most of the time away from home, is that they went out with zero AMBITION to win a game of football. To me that's scandalous given the amount of money supporters shell out. Valencia was a case in point - he banged the drum about getting out there in numbers yet he had no intention of trying to win the game. I can't have the bloke, end of. Ditto His approach to the away game in Valencia was indefensible failing to even put out enough players on the bench!For me that was a defining moment. However for those who struggled with Pulisball in the prem it nowhere near compares to the binary season. I was living in Dubai at the time and that season 8 out of 10 of the games I attended we failed to score or even some games barely mustered a shot. I remember standing in the uncovered end at QPR getting drenched in my business suit watching a simply appalling performance from my team. I was so close at that point to calling it a day and thinking why should I bother, and this after decades of supporting Stoke was a sad moment. I haven't come that close since.TP delivered some fabulous memories but some pretty depressing ones too.
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Post by elystokie on Oct 6, 2015 12:28:14 GMT
It's not just about entertainment is it? We all want to win at any costs. The problem with some of the sides Pulis sent out, most of the time away from home, is that they went out with zero AMBITION to win a game of football. To me that's scandalous given the amount of money supporters shell out. Valencia was a case in point - he banged the drum about getting out there in numbers yet he had no intention of trying to win the game. I can't have the bloke, end of. Ditto Ditto
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Post by Stretfordpotterer on Oct 6, 2015 13:30:31 GMT
Leaving TP to one side for a moment Malcolm, and looking solely at the point you make about the results/entertainment debate, I have to disagree. Of course there has to be a balance. You can't go all out to score goals whilst completely neglecting the defensively side of the game, as Wigan seemed to do when they eventually went down. But surely entertainment has to be top of the priority list for supporters? We're not Chairmen, stakeholders, or managers of a business, we're passionate supporters. The lifeblood of the game. For many of us it was our fathers favourite past time and if we're lucky enough, we'll get to share it with our kids when the time arrives. I will enever accept that results are king over the performance and entrainment served up. Of course, throughout the course of a season a team will win ugly and scrape out results. In fact, that's normally the sign of a good side. I still expect a team to go out and play a bit over the course of 38 games or whatever a season may hold. We did fantastic to get promotion and even better to fight and battle to secure our place in the top flight but we were always going to reach a point where expectations were heightened. The squad has been invested in heavily and that should be reflected on the pitch. This isn't a dig at Pulis either. He gave me some of my best ever moments as a Stoke fan and will rightly go down as a legend. It was absolutely the right decision to get rid of him though. The results had deteriorated over a long period of time and the performances were absolutely dire. He probably would have kept us up again had he stayed but all the enjoyment of match day had sapped away and we should expect more than that. He got backed heavily and, truth be told, completely lost his way in the end. Hughes came in and was a breath of fresh air. He gave us much needed impetus, positivity and bought back the feelgood factor. The parting of the ways probably helped TP too as he went to Palace and inherited a team full of pace and trickery and utilised it in a way which he failed to do in his last 18 months at Stoke. Results are obviously massively important but it will never take precedence over enjoyment for me. I want to be entertained. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want the Arnie's, Bojan's and Shaqiri's and I want to see them tearing the opposition apart. It costs too much money and takes up too much of our time for it simply to be about the result. When my lads old enough to come with me in a few years time it won't matter to me what league we're in. I had to put the hard yards in during some of the turgid stuff served up in League One so I don't see why he should have it easy! It's a massice cliche but being a Stoke fan is something that's in the blood. When you invest in something with such emotion it can never be just about the result. I'd rate some of the Championship moments with the magic of Ric over some of the utterly miserable periods in the Premier League when we offered next to nothing in terms of entertainment. That's a pretty good piece of writing whyd . On reflection, I sort of half agree with you. I take a very different view when I'm watching Stoke to when I'm watching a game as a neutral, either live or on TV. For me, when it's Stoke, the result is the only thing which really matters. If you can get it by a 6-1 rather than a 1-0 then, of course, so much the better, but better the scrappy 1-0 than say a 3-3. But I also think, as is often the case on this board, there is a tendency to see things as black and white when the reality is multiple shades of grey. What gives fans "entertainment" ? ( although for me Stoke winning is 'entertainment' by definition and I feel good when it happens, whatever happened in the game). It is presumably goal scoring opportunities and penalty box action. But that can happen in different ways. Rory hurling a throw into the box or a long punt from Ryan or Huth aimed at Kenwyn or Mama Sidibe to flick it on for Fuller or whoever, to run onto, can be more exciting that our back 4 repeatedly passing it around between them in our own half which we often do at the moment (which sometimes both bores me and worries me silly - it has been interesting this season that there have been quite a few PL goals conceeded, not by us, by defenders messing around rather than getting rid) . I rather agree with Peter Coates when he said what matters is not whether it's a long ball or a short ball but whether it's a good ball. But like you I also look forward to the prospect of players like Arnie, Bojan and hopefully Shaq ( if and when he produces the form we know he's capable of) creating those chances. But no-one could say that, for example, Fuller or Etherington, two of TP's stalwarts, were not also exciting players. Football matches are won by scoring more goals than the opposition and drawn by not conceeding more goals than the opposition. We are not, thankfully, like rugby where you get bonus points for extra tries. Therefore the only "good football" in my view is football which increases the probability of doing those things. That's why I think all these "possession" stats are often irrelevant, and the expression "a footballing side" is near meaningless. It's where you have the possession and what you do with it that matters. Last season we got our highest points total in the PL , so in that sense by my definition it was the best football we have played in the PL - long may it continue. I don't think anyone would ever try to claim that some of what TP delivered was not entertaining. In the first few PL seasons, when we played well, i thought we were great to watch. I loved watching a quick transition from defence to attack, done with purpose and with players to make it work. I think when talking about TP there is a tendency to muddle style and intent into one. I have no problem with direct football, in fact i rather enjoy it. It was the complete lack of intent that did for TP in the end in terms of his standing with a large chunk of the support. When we were bad, my word we were awful. It just didn't look like we were trying to win because we weren't. We were trying to hang on to a point and see where that got us. I suppose you could say we always did that under TP but i don't really think so. He simply lost all the weapons which made it work and couldn't/wouldn't replace them. He seemed to sign himself into a right muddle as far as i could see. The team was completely divested of pace, and he never looked like he was inclined to replace it. Just look what he achieved at Palace, because he took over a team absolutely packed to the rafters with out and out pace. It seems bizarre that he never really saw what was wrong and corrected it in the latter years at Stoke, he had the time and the budget, just a bit too stubborn for his own good.
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Post by Malcolm Clarke on Oct 6, 2015 13:51:12 GMT
That's a pretty good piece of writing whyd . On reflection, I sort of half agree with you. I take a very different view when I'm watching Stoke to when I'm watching a game as a neutral, either live or on TV. For me, when it's Stoke, the result is the only thing which really matters. If you can get it by a 6-1 rather than a 1-0 then, of course, so much the better, but better the scrappy 1-0 than say a 3-3. But I also think, as is often the case on this board, there is a tendency to see things as black and white when the reality is multiple shades of grey. What gives fans "entertainment" ? ( although for me Stoke winning is 'entertainment' by definition and I feel good when it happens, whatever happened in the game). It is presumably goal scoring opportunities and penalty box action. But that can happen in different ways. Rory hurling a throw into the box or a long punt from Ryan or Huth aimed at Kenwyn or Mama Sidibe to flick it on for Fuller or whoever, to run onto, can be more exciting that our back 4 repeatedly passing it around between them in our own half which we often do at the moment (which sometimes both bores me and worries me silly - it has been interesting this season that there have been quite a few PL goals conceeded, not by us, by defenders messing around rather than getting rid) . I rather agree with Peter Coates when he said what matters is not whether it's a long ball or a short ball but whether it's a good ball. But like you I also look forward to the prospect of players like Arnie, Bojan and hopefully Shaq ( if and when he produces the form we know he's capable of) creating those chances. But no-one could say that, for example, Fuller or Etherington, two of TP's stalwarts, were not also exciting players. Football matches are won by scoring more goals than the opposition and drawn by not conceeding more goals than the opposition. We are not, thankfully, like rugby where you get bonus points for extra tries. Therefore the only "good football" in my view is football which increases the probability of doing those things. That's why I think all these "possession" stats are often irrelevant, and the expression "a footballing side" is near meaningless. It's where you have the possession and what you do with it that matters. Last season we got our highest points total in the PL , so in that sense by my definition it was the best football we have played in the PL - long may it continue. Just as a matter of interest... Did you agree with the sacking of TP? When Peter Coates took over ownership of the club (again) I was one of the old Fans Forum who met him. It was rumoured that he was going to bring TP back. I said to him that he shouldn't and should go for a fresh start. As it turned out, not one of my better judgement calls ! Subsequently, after we had been promoted to the PL, PC pulled my leg about it at the FA Council. I wasn't one of those who was calling for TP to go, but when he did, I thought I'm not going to make the same mistake twice and say that PC has got it wrong. PC was in far better position than I to make that judgement, so I took the view that if he thought that was the best thing for the club, it probably was. In the event, TP went on to win the PL manager of the season elsewhere, and PC appointed a manager who has taken us to our best PL finish, so everyone was a winner it seems to me. In any event, once he'd gone, he'd gone, so there wasn't, and isn't, too much point debating whether it was the right decision. The king is dead, long live the king.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2015 14:19:30 GMT
this is discrimination...... i want more of these kinds of threads about Cotterill, Boskamp, Chic Bates, Megson etc. etc.
they're feeling a little left out and are just as entitled to be ridiculed on here by fans.....and most deserve it much much more than a man who got us promoted to the highest level of domestic football we could possibly get to and kept us up!!!
yes, his football turned shite but everyone (including the board) knew it was the right time to move on so guess what....he moved on! really don't see why people insist on going over and over the obvious faults he had as if they somehow completely negate the good he did beforehand. he did a superb job, reached his ceiling, started to deteriorate so left..end of story! nothing he did harmed us in the long run or got us relegated and what another team's fans think of him mean the square root of sod all to us, he's their manager so whether or not they like him isn't anything to bloody do with Stoke fans......apart from those with an eternal agenda towards him and who desperately want to see a man who has nothing to do with us anymore fail in his chosen career(which says far more about those posters than it does Pulis)
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Post by sheikhmomo on Oct 6, 2015 14:20:12 GMT
Playing well and losing gives me the exact same lousy feeling as playing shit and losing. Playing well and winning does though feel better than playing shit and winning.
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Post by foxysgloves on Oct 6, 2015 14:24:16 GMT
this is discrimination...... i want more of these kinds of threads about Cotterill, Boskamp, Chic Bates, Megson etc. etc. they're feeling a little left out and are just as entitled to be ridiculed on here by fans.....and most deserve it much much more than a man who got us promoted to the highest level of domestic football we could possibly get to and kept us up!!! yes, his football turned shite but everyone (including the board) knew it was the right time to move on so guess what....he went! really don't see why people insist on going over and over the obvious faults he had as if they somehow completely negate the good he did beforehand. he did a superb job, reached his ceiling, started to deteriorate so left..end of story! Nicely put.
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Post by Malcolm Clarke on Oct 6, 2015 14:26:45 GMT
It's not just about entertainment is it? We all want to win at any costs. The problem with some of the sides Pulis sent out, most of the time away from home, is that they went out with zero AMBITION to win a game of football. To me that's scandalous given the amount of money supporters shell out. Valencia was a case in point - he banged the drum about getting out there in numbers yet he had no intention of trying to win the game. I can't have the bloke, end of. I think it would be more accurate to say that he gave winning the game a lower priority that winning the next two important home league games, which we did. But the team he put out did try to win the game, and if Kenwyn had taken one or more of the chances he had, might well have done. We'll never know what team TP would have put out if we had gone there with a lead, or whether the "1st team" would have done any better, or how we would have fared in the 2 following league games if the "1st team" had played in Valencia. All speculation. I do agree however that the fans were misled to some extent.
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Post by greyman on Oct 6, 2015 15:15:42 GMT
I think it's time the admin just pinned and locked one of these threads then just deleted anything else on the same subject. It's all been said over and over again
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Post by bayernoatcake on Oct 6, 2015 15:56:33 GMT
Why deluded? Winning isn't everything. If it's shit to watch then people will moan irrespective. We each speak for ourselves, but for me, when it comes to Stoke City, it IS all about winning, or rather it's all about points - getting as many as possible. I would rather see a stalemate 0-0 than an exciting 4-3 defeat any day of the week. I thought TP did a tremendous job at Stoke, getting us up, keeping us up, keeping us mid-table ish; taking us to the Cup Final and through that to a European tour which I loved. He left us and the season after deservedly won the PL manager of the season. But he was replaced by a manager who got us our highest ever points total in the PL - brilliant. In short, I'm strongly pro-TP; strongly pro-LMH; strongly pro-Stoke City and strongly pro our chairman who, in recent years at least, has shown that he is very good at picking managers. The constant playing for a 0-0 does/did nothing for me. As a one off (or for the odd game) it's fine as your main tactic for away games it absolutely and always did stink.
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Post by elystokie on Oct 6, 2015 17:58:49 GMT
Interesting that the poll at the top of the page has nearly 70% pro Pulis. They have a new poll now...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2015 18:10:30 GMT
We each speak for ourselves, but for me, when it comes to Stoke City, it IS all about winning, or rather it's all about points - getting as many as possible. I would rather see a stalemate 0-0 than an exciting 4-3 defeat any day of the week. I thought TP did a tremendous job at Stoke, getting us up, keeping us up, keeping us mid-table ish; taking us to the Cup Final and through that to a European tour which I loved. He left us and the season after deservedly won the PL manager of the season. But he was replaced by a manager who got us our highest ever points total in the PL - brilliant. In short, I'm strongly pro-TP; strongly pro-LMH; strongly pro-Stoke City and strongly pro our chairman who, in recent years at least, has shown that he is very good at picking managers. The constant playing for a 0-0 does/did nothing for me. As a one off (or for the odd game) it's fine as your main tactic for away games it absolutely and always did stink. i kind of agree with both of you.first couple of seasons up fine, set up for a point away from home and a win is just a bonus; at that stage we just needed to stay up,attract some players then push on and that was the problem really....that push never came and that's where i start to see your point bayern. For that to be the be all and end all with no other ambition suffocated the life out of the team and the fans. as i said earlier though,all that means is that he reached the limit of his capabilities and there's no shame in that and nothing wrong with it (we all hit a personal ceiling in anything we do). I'm just eternally grateful that his ceiling was way above the level needed to get us here and keep us here,luckily we then found someone with different capabilities that have enabled us to make that extra push. Both great managers with different skillsets is all.no more than that
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Post by spitthedog on Oct 6, 2015 18:15:58 GMT
£30.5m on Jonny Evans, Rondon, McLean, Lambert, Chester (£8m for a bench player!) and McManaman (who doesn't play). Given a big budget, he hasn't got a clue what to do with it. I wonder who their agents are?
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Post by Sergeant Muttley on Oct 6, 2015 18:20:42 GMT
For me the 1st season in the prem takes some beating for the all round match day experience having gone to every game that season.
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Post by Skankmonkey on Oct 6, 2015 18:21:48 GMT
Interesting that the poll at the top of the page has nearly 70% pro Pulis. They have a new poll now... And no doubt they will keep having them until they get the right result. Whatever that is. <winky>
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Post by Skankmonkey on Oct 6, 2015 18:24:38 GMT
For me the 1st season in the prem takes some beating for the all round match day experience having gone to every game that season. In modern times, yes I'm with you 100% on that. Us against them. Stoke v Everyone else and his brother. Electric.
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