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Post by matelot1996 on Oct 7, 2023 20:04:38 GMT
There's a long way to go. Just need to get players back fit and beef up the defence in January and hope it's enough. Hopefully we'll avoid the drop. I still think we're good enough to get 17th to 21st. There is no reason to believe our club can maintain the fitness our players. We will always have key players injured. Recent History cements this theory. We’re not cursed, we are not (for whatever reason) capable of keeping players consistently fit. It’s a bit weird and needs closer scrutiny by the business.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2023 20:06:31 GMT
Our entire starting defence and starting attack are out injured. How outrageous that we are not beating a team now 10 points clear of the play off places having won all but one game this season. Do you think TP would have started a season with 3 CB's, 1 (33 year old) LB? Ask yourself that. No we'd have six CBs. Four playing and two on the bench TP didn't really do FBs.
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Post by silsdenstokie on Oct 7, 2023 21:29:13 GMT
Based on his last 12 months, at any other club he wouldnt be in a job
Fraud
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Post by lordb on Oct 7, 2023 21:33:54 GMT
Today isn't a huge reflection on things given the context of them flying and Stoke in an injury crisis
10 points from 11 games, only having 3 CB's most definitely is a reflection on things
Definitely in trouble
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Post by yellowsnowman on Oct 7, 2023 21:49:36 GMT
Real mess. Only thing is a new manager will be getting slaughted as defensively we are woeful and will be prayng for january themselves..!
Do you trust AN to fix this in jan or do we get rid? And trust some one else.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2023 21:53:10 GMT
Real mess. Only thing is a new manager will be getting slaughted as defensively we are woeful and will be prayng for january themselves..! Do you trust AN to fix this in jan or do we get rid? And trust some one else. Sadly, I don't see how he can sort this mess out. I think his head will be on the chopping block soon.
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Post by prestwichpotter on Oct 7, 2023 21:55:09 GMT
We simply have to push the boat out for a couple of free agent defenders, if that gives us a FFP issue and we have to sell someone in January then so be it.
We cannot afford to get cut adrift with 3 or 4 other teams............
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Post by yellowsnowman on Oct 7, 2023 21:59:47 GMT
Real mess. Only thing is a new manager will be getting slaughted as defensively we are woeful and will be prayng for january themselves..! Do you trust AN to fix this in jan or do we get rid? And trust some one else. Sadly, I don't see how he can sort this mess out. I think his head will be on the chopping block soon. I agree fella. Surely the board know hes made a right mess of things!
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Post by PotteringThrough on Oct 7, 2023 22:02:46 GMT
I’m confident there is 3 worse teams than us this season but it’s going to be a long old trek until May
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Post by Gary Hackett on Oct 7, 2023 22:04:49 GMT
I really don't know what came over AN endorsing US Jared and Tricky's drug addled summer trolley dash. I thought the whole point of AN was that you got pragmatism and an old fashioned work ethic. You put up with him being a miserable, punchy bugger because these are good attributes to have. It seems to me that somehow he has allowed himself to be seduced by Jared's dark good looks and Tricky's middle management psycho-babble. Strangest damn thing I've ever seen. You're definitely the funniest poster on here Gods. The words psycho babble aren't used enough 😀
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Post by anchorman on Oct 7, 2023 22:18:02 GMT
Our entire starting defence and starting attack are out injured. How outrageous that we are not beating a team now 10 points clear of the play off places having won all but one game this season. Do you think TP would have started a season with 3 CB's, 1 (33 year old) LB? Ask yourself that. Not a chance. Sort your keeper & defence out first and foremost. Without a real spine it literally doesn’t matter who you play up front if you’re always vulnerable at the back. It’s what all good teams are built on, a solid defence and TP was the master.
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Post by andycooke96 on Oct 8, 2023 6:03:57 GMT
Our entire starting defence and starting attack are out injured. How outrageous that we are not beating a team now 10 points clear of the play off places having won all but one game this season. Losing isn’t outrageous, what is outrageous is accepting and setting up for a defeat from the first minute.
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Post by robrigo on Oct 8, 2023 6:15:04 GMT
We are currently in trouble but I’ll think we’ll be ok. Ok isn’t good enough really though. I thought we may finish top half for the first time and we may still do. However hand on heart I just can’t see that now. This season is shaping up to be replicas of the previous seasons since our relegation and it’s just not good enough.
Neil’s game plan yesterday was the final straw for me. Not the injuries, not the fact that we were playing Leicester, not the fact that a win or draw was unlikely, but the fact that he was scared. Terrible message to convey to the players. Neil out.
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Post by wilcopotter on Oct 8, 2023 6:43:13 GMT
I’m confident there is 3 worse teams than us this season but it’s going to be a long old trek until May If this has now become our aspiration after all the new signings , new back room and “new approach “ hype, this is exactly why AN should go. Hope he turns it around, has been unlucky with injuries. Recruitment ( Dale’s supermarket sweep style) should’ve sorted the defence and the fact it didn’t means we’re paying for it now. I was truly pleased with the appointment of AN and didn’t think we’d be where we are at this stage. Looking at Ipswich, WBA, Preston and Birmingham City as examples tells me this is not good enough.
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Post by bridgnorthstokie on Oct 8, 2023 7:48:17 GMT
Sorry lads I see no green shoots at all. We are in a mess. We have punted 18 signings, hit with 3 seemingly Junior,vidi and maybe Bae Awful awful hit rate. We look dead and buried to me. We rolled the dice and ended up going straight to jail. Fml Add junior, Travers, burger and in time mmae to the hit list. 7 from 18 is probably the average hit score fir most clubs. Players who come for free are free for a reason, we needed so many some came in as squad fillers only.
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Post by Staffsoatcake on Oct 8, 2023 8:50:56 GMT
When all our players are back fit, AN will most likely be more confused on who to play, plus which tactic to go with.
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Post by spoton on Oct 8, 2023 9:47:06 GMT
When all our players are back fit, AN will most likely be more confused on who to play, plus which tactic to go with. He won't be here to see it
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Post by questionable on Oct 8, 2023 9:53:52 GMT
There's a long way to go. Just need to get players back fit and beef up the defence in January and hope it's enough. Hopefully we'll avoid the drop. I still think we're good enough to get 17th to 21st. Struggle to pick out who exactly we need to get back from the injury list as we’ve been abysmal with a fully fit squad, AN chose to ignore the defence situation. It’s obvious that AN is completely out of his depth as after his 50 odd games here I can’t see what/if anything he’s trying to achieve.
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Post by pb1863 on Oct 8, 2023 11:06:14 GMT
I think there’s little option but to give him more time. Apart from all of the injuries playing Pearson, Laurent & Johnston together just isn’t working and needs to be stopped immediately.
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Post by mrrine on Oct 8, 2023 11:08:38 GMT
People havent accounted for january.
Yes it's fucking bleak at the minute. A Cooper style Centrehalf would make a hell of a difference.
get that wrong and we'll hover around the bottom 5-7 spots.
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Post by matelot1996 on Oct 8, 2023 11:18:50 GMT
Given our form, our nutrient deficient playing staff, inept coaching, weak hierachy and management, AN will be toast before February. Probably sooner if we fail to win any of the next 5.
The club seem happy with a win ratio of 1:4 or 5, it’s hard to surmise otherwise as they never say anything meaningful. So it may drag out a bit longer but ultimately he will be out of a job soon.
There is no new pot of gold on the horizon for him or us.
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Post by matelot1996 on Oct 8, 2023 11:24:29 GMT
People havent accounted for january. Yes it's fucking bleak at the minute. A Cooper style Centrehalf would make a hell of a difference. get that wrong and we'll hover around the bottom 5-7 spots. I think people are well aware of January. Why on earth do you think January will change our fortunes. He’s already bought 17 players, the majority of whom haven’t improved us. What now? Authorise purchase of 10, 20 more?
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Post by dirtygary69 on Oct 8, 2023 11:30:52 GMT
It’s still at a delicate stage in the season for me, to declare being in real trouble. If we’ve got some semblance of a defence against Sunderland and our attacking options are much improved then we can get a result. Same against Leeds.
I know history and stats show that Neil’s tenure has been dire, and we should be aiming for so much more than this but we’re not far enough into this project to just write it off and start again…yet. The signs so far aren’t good, but there are mitigating factors. Some of them bought on by the man himself. But even if we changed manager now, they’d face the same issues. PLEASE sign a defender on a free transfer for crying out loud!!
Even if we aren’t in a relegation scrap, lower mid table is not good enough, but we all know from history that we’ve never had anyone come in and turn us around, save for MON who turned Jones’ shitshow into something much better. Neil isn’t Jones bad (in terms of the start to the season) but obviously we could be in a similar situation if it carries on like this.
It’s on a knife edge in a lot of respects. Beating Sunderland is his only way out of immediate danger. Lose to them and Leeds and he probably loses his job and I probably concede we are in real trouble. As it stands, it’s pretty fucking rubbish and in many ways just typically Stoke - a complete rebuild with every player we’ve added having minor to major injury issues. We’ve then somehow managed to play seemingly every team when they’re in some vein of form, other than Huddersfield. And then there’s the rank bad officials.
I’m not making excuses, I just think things could have been a lot easier than they have been for us. I can feel for Neil in certain respects but he’s very much on borrowed time in others. He needs to have the best two weeks of his Stoke managerial career on the training ground between now and Sunderland and pray the injury list is significantly reduced. He then needs to start dropping players consistently underperforming.
He has loads to do to be even close to winning the support over. Fortunately for him it hasn’t turned nasty in the stands yet. Make the most of it, or you’ll be on your bike before Halloween.
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Post by PotteringThrough on Oct 8, 2023 11:40:25 GMT
I’m confident there is 3 worse teams than us this season but it’s going to be a long old trek until May If this has now become our aspiration after all the new signings , new back room and “new approach “ hype, this is exactly why AN should go. Hope he turns it around, has been unlucky with injuries. Recruitment ( Dale’s supermarket sweep style) should’ve sorted the defence and the fact it didn’t means we’re paying for it now. I was truly pleased with the appointment of AN and didn’t think we’d be where we are at this stage. Looking at Ipswich, WBA, Preston and Birmingham City as examples tells me this is not good enough. Just to clarify, it’s not my aspiration - we are woefully underperforming in my opinion.
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Post by mrrine on Oct 8, 2023 11:50:13 GMT
People havent accounted for january. Yes it's fucking bleak at the minute. A Cooper style Centrehalf would make a hell of a difference. get that wrong and we'll hover around the bottom 5-7 spots. I think people are well aware of January. Why on earth do you think January will change our fortunes. He’s already bought 17 players, the majority of whom haven’t improved us. What now? Authorise purchase of 10, 20 more? Not really - a lot of this thread is 'dead and buried' or 'free transfers' or 'sack the manager' - Which is fine in and of itself, but we really need to geta successful Jan window in. That could make the difference between being relegated or not. If you got a quality left back, one or two properly decent centre halves in, how would it not change our fortunes? I'm not saying do that and we get promoted, I'm saying do that and we're unlikely to get relegated. I despise this manager and was totally against his appointment from the start, I'm happy for him to be locked in a basement for the remainder of his contract. Fact remains we still need to sort that defence out. So authorise 10 or 20 more? Who ever suggested that, because it wasn't fucking me...
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Post by march4 on Oct 8, 2023 11:52:54 GMT
I wouldn’t go into the January transfer window with our new recruitment manager. AN did perfectly well in last January’s window but has done less well in the summer.
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Post by coldtuesdaynight on Oct 8, 2023 11:55:53 GMT
We’re literally one left back and one centre back away from having a very good squad in this league. (And half of that equation seems to have been down to our manager having some weird problem with a perfectly decent Championship player)
If we pull the trigger now and appoint a good new manager we’ll be absolutely fine. It should have happened before the Bristol City game, but given that run of 3 games I can understand why it was decided that there wasn’t much point bringing in a new manager to get off to an awful start.
If we hang around and see how things go until Christmas then I’ll be as worried as anyone.
I can’t see Neil being here by the middle of next week. Since Hughes we’ve shown every indication we’ll sack managers when there’s a sniff of a relegation dog fight in this league.
If by some reason John Coates has lost his ruthless business like thought process and is that much in love with Neil that he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger… then he deserves every bit of stick that is going to come his way between now and the eventual sacking later in the season, which seems inevitable now.
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Post by matelot1996 on Oct 8, 2023 12:04:37 GMT
I think people are well aware of January. Why on earth do you think January will change our fortunes. He’s already bought 17 players, the majority of whom haven’t improved us. What now? Authorise purchase of 10, 20 more? Not really - a lot of this thread is 'dead and buried' or 'free transfers' or 'sack the manager' - Which is fine in and of itself, but we really need to geta successful Jan window in. That could make the difference between being relegated or not. If you got a quality left back, one or two properly decent centre halves in, how would it not change our fortunes? I'm not saying do that and we get promoted, I'm saying do that and we're unlikely to get relegated. I despise this manager and was totally against his appointment from the start, I'm happy for him to be locked in a basement for the remainder of his contract. Fact remains we still need to sort that defence out. So authorise 10 or 20 more? Who ever suggested that, because it wasn't fucking me... January won’t solve our problems. Anyone who has ever taken notice of Jan Transfer windows or Stoke City knows that.
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Post by GrahamHyde on Oct 8, 2023 12:17:06 GMT
We are currently in trouble but I’ll think we’ll be ok. Ok isn’t good enough really though. I thought we may finish top half for the first time and we may still do. However hand on heart I just can’t see that now. This season is shaping up to be replicas of the previous seasons since our relegation and it’s just not good enough. Neil’s game plan yesterday was the final straw for me. Not the injuries, not the fact that we were playing Leicester, not the fact that a win or draw was unlikely, but the fact that he was scared. Terrible message to convey to the players. Neil out. Agree, it's the sort of approach that Pulis used to take when we played the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea away in the Premier League. It was even annoying then, but I kinda understood it - but Leicester? Nah. Every Championship game is winnable, these are not elite sides. Unforgivable that.
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Post by Staffsoatcake on Oct 8, 2023 12:27:25 GMT
Somehow we have to do a Middlesboro, rock bottom no wins, then 3/4 wins on the trot. It will be hard, we haven't won 3 on the trot since Moses was wetting his nappy.
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