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Post by stokieoldboy on Jul 5, 2016 12:45:07 GMT
while i think its great that we can attract good quality players ie Arnie, shaq, boyan,muniesa, affalay,i fear we are losing our bulldog fighting spirit which had the fans on there feet,which in turn spurred the players on,and had the opposition shitting themselves because of the sheer volume of noise and intimidation we created,we were once considered to be one of the loudest fans in the premier,but sadly not any more,your thoughts on this topic,
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Post by adamsson on Jul 5, 2016 12:54:00 GMT
You saw a team of quality players play a team of battlers on Sunday night and the battlers got thrashed.
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Post by chrispk76 on Jul 5, 2016 13:01:27 GMT
Anything that doesn't involve being posession obsessed and going nowhere. saw too much of it last season and a belly full of it at the euros.
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Post by alster on Jul 5, 2016 13:04:22 GMT
Pretty much covered this on a Euro 2016 thread the other day. When something is a novelty fans get enthusiastic about any old shit (Iceland in Euros, Stoke's early Prem days) after a while the novelty wears off and the players have to provide the fans with something to get excited about. The Brit had already quietened well before we started playing football and would have probably gone toxic given another season of backs to the wall, plucky underdog rubbish we were being served up. We had a few really good performances last season that created a really good atmosphere, so we can still rise to it. Conversely we had a lot of rather bland and the occasional rotten performance that got what they deserved in the way of audience participation(not much). Football is entertainment for the fans, if its not very good why should they pretend otherwise?
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Post by mickmillslovechild on Jul 5, 2016 13:12:24 GMT
we were a team of battlers for no other reason that we had to be to stay up in the Prem.
it's not as if we had flair players that we were telling to just work 'ard and don't dare show any skill or quality (players like Tuncay for example barely even got a game if they didn't have the battling spirit and were just all about flair).
the battlers we had were battlers because that's what got them where they were in their career because they didn't have the skillsets of some of the players we now have so needed something else in their locker in order to get on in this business. it's no coincidence that (although i love players like Rory, Wilko, Mama even SJW) none of those "Battlers" ever moved onwards and upwards after us.
i also don't think it was the "battling" that has the team on their feet and we're quiter because we don't have as many of those battlers left; we were on our feet purely and simply due to the novelty of finally being in the Prem. nothing more...countless teams have been applauded for their noise and passion as fans and it's always because they're teams that aren't used to the "Big time!". after a few years, the novelty wears off and those fans quieten down. 100% not a phenomenon exclusive to Stoke.
you tend to get teams at the top end that don't need the battlers as much because their players are so high quality or teams down the bottom half who are stacked with battlers simply because they can't get the quality. not many teams have a good mix of both because it just doesn't work; no point in having Shaq down the right if his backup is Wilko who simply doesn't have the same level of footballing brain so isn't going to think of (and therefore be on the receiving end of) the same pass Shaq may be thinking of pulling off.
a lot of our players are hard workers to be fair...Glenn, Arnie (regardless of what some on here think), Diouf, Ryan, Pieters etc. in fact we don't have many shirkers at all really.
"Battlers" tend to be the teams that throw everyone and everything in front of the ball and when you see it people automatically think "passion, determination" and various other meaningless terms like that. in reality it's usually for no other reason than they have shitloads of men back to throw in front of everything because they're outclassed and the entire team is penned back for large parts of the game (which is why most "Battlers" don't really achieve much at all).
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Post by jezzascfc on Jul 5, 2016 13:18:21 GMT
Like any good team you need a blend of both - battlers to dig in and fight for possession and to defend your goal, flair players to do something with the ball once we've got it and score the goals at t'other end! It's getting the balance right which can be tricky. In the past several years we've seen our team move from one end of the spectrum not quite to the other, but maybe a little too far to a point where it has left us with a bit of a soft underbelly at times this past season, caught between two stools, when the fight was not quite there as it should be, both in terms of putting bodies in harm's way in defence and in putting heads where boots are flying to score goals. We need some more physicality to go with the finesse, a bit of steel to go with the silk. For me that means a rock to partner Ryan (who does not wear gloves!), a defensive midfielder so Glenn does not have to shoulder the burden alone and a forward with Walters' attitude, Diouf's pace and Joselu's touch - all in one body!
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Post by stokieoldboy on Jul 5, 2016 14:37:39 GMT
You saw a team of quality players play a team of battlers on Sunday night and the battlers got thrashed. yes but dont let us forget that they also played a team full of premier leage quality players last wednesday and won,  come on wales |
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Post by JoeinOz on Jul 5, 2016 14:46:03 GMT
Top class players can battle.
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Post by chiefdelilah on Jul 5, 2016 14:52:34 GMT
while i think its great that we can attract good quality players ie Arnie, shaq, boyan,muniesa, affalay,i fear we are losing our bulldog fighting spirit which had the fans on there feet,which in turn spurred the players on,and had the opposition shitting themselves because of the sheer volume of noise and intimidation we created,we were once considered to be one of the loudest fans in the premier,but sadly not any more,your thoughts on this topic, It's all a bit rose tinted though mate. We do need some steel back in the team but all this 'it was better in the old days' stuff always conveniently forgets that we never finished as high then as we did in the last three seasons after this 'bulldog fighting spirit' supposedly went. |
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Post by wuzza on Jul 5, 2016 14:53:27 GMT
I would suggest that top class quality individual players are battlers - they have skill but realise it gets them nowhere without the mental and physical toughness to carry it through.
The game is littered with the long forgotten highly skilful players who didn't have the correct attitude to make themselves into stars.
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Post by fca47 on Jul 5, 2016 17:49:34 GMT
Team is the most important word, if quality players don't play as a team , they will get beaten.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2016 17:56:18 GMT
Both.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2016 18:51:10 GMT
I'll say the same as I said when someone else asked this question....
Both. You need a good balance of battle hardened players to compliment your skillfull ones. There's no need to ask which you prefer as the only correct answer is both.
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Post by johnnysoul60 on Jul 5, 2016 19:06:46 GMT
I think that the key word in all this is TEAM
On Sunday no doubt after seeing what happened to England and having a decent manager the French had a game plan and they all stuck to it , their work rate was tremendous and they hustled Iceland and forced them into errors , having put the work in their vastly superior ability shone through and they easily won the game .
If talented players work and play as a team they will usually win .
A battling team will beat better individuals if they are not together as we saw with Wales v Belgium and of course have seen with England countless times
At a club level the biggest frustration I had with our lot last season was in quite a few games some of the new players didn't put the work in especially at home where we looked very slow and predictable and for the money they get not working hard is unacceptable and this is why we dipped a little on the previous season in my view .
I hope Hughes has taken that on board and that we add pace , strength and work rate this season to the ability that is without doubt the best since the early 70's side
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Post by JoeinOz on Jul 5, 2016 22:41:39 GMT
Makes me laugh how people still think skill and battling are separate things.
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Post by cerebralstokie on Jul 6, 2016 7:16:26 GMT
The Stoke team of the 70's possessed both qualities. Smith, Bloor, Skeels were "battlers"; Terry Conroy, Hudson, Banks and George Eastham ( a much underrated player in my view) blended to form, at its best a very exciting team to watch. Eric Todd wrote in the Guardian "Heaven inspire me to find some new superlatives. If I live to be 100, I will never watch a game such as this" after watching Stoke beat West Ham at Old Trafford in the second replay of the 1972 League Cup semi final.
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Post by stokieoldboy on Jul 6, 2016 7:42:01 GMT
Makes me laugh how people still think skill and battling are separate things. ok joe i'll change the battling to aggression,i could name quite a few players,to many now, in the stoke team who have an abundance of skill or flair whichever you like to call it,but have abbsolutly no aggression what so ever,and that is the point i'm trying to make,i agree we do need to balance the squad,with both aggression and skill,but my worry is are we going to end up with a team full of ball juggling fairies with big fat bank balances,i hope not.  |
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Post by Staffsoatcake on Jul 6, 2016 8:38:10 GMT
A team of individuals will get you nowhere, it's a team game, all the players have to depend on each other. Anyway, a team needs both, flair will only get you so far, battlers will only get you so far, combine both.  |
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Post by JoeinOz on Jul 6, 2016 12:51:14 GMT
Makes me laugh how people still think skill and battling are separate things. ok joe i'll change the battling to aggression,i could name quite a few players,to many now, in the stoke team who have an abundance of skill or flair whichever you like to call it,but have abbsolutly no aggression what so ever,and that is the point i'm trying to make,i agree we do need to balance the squad,with both aggression and skill,but my worry is are we going to end up with a team full of ball juggling fairies with big fat bank balances,i hope not. Top players do display aGGressION. tHE THING IS THEY ChanNEL IT POSITIveLY INTO THEIR GAME. (caps on sorry) |
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Post by FriendlyLCFC on Jul 6, 2016 15:35:14 GMT
One of the key reasons Leicester did so well last season & won the league, was because we had an starting eleven of both battlers and class. Every member of the squad/XI gave their all every match. As a result, the crowd respond and the atmosphere is magnificent. What the players show on the pitch, filters through into the stands. The connection between Leicester fans & players is the best I've ever seen since supporting the club, it goes a long way.
I obviously don't watch Stoke every week, but individually there's some great players in your squad. I feel, on form and with consistency, you are capable of Europe and a top ten finish. I like Hughes, speaks sense and is a good manager. The overall set up at Stoke is good from an overview.
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come on wales
