Got the jitters me.....

[CalgaryPotter]

Been offline for a few days, come back hoping I've missed something and the first thing I see on Sky Sports is that Austin's work permit has been turned down and Fulop has joined Keane slagging us off.

I have to admit, I was one of the doubters last year pre-season with players leaving and nowt coming in. Our saviour was the loan players and this year its not available to the same extent.

If Pulis thinks he can start the first game against Bolton with our current squad the bloke must have participated in some seriously large fat ones from his recent trip to the Bahamas.

Every point will be precious, I'm completely gobsmacked that with 2 weeks left till kick off we have only 3 new signings and only one has played. We have last years first choice centre forward resting and not playing in friendlies, our other top scorer in the naughty boys club after mouthing at the ref in pre-season and we're chasing an ex centre back who plays for the club who have just called us twats.

Anyone else concerned?

I'm not asking for a 'plethora" of players, just a couple more good signings to at least give us half a chance of fighting it out with the fellow plebs in the third tier of the Premiership.

[hatchett]

Yes I'm concerned too, but not going to panick just yet. We have now 13 days left before our opening game which we need a point from straight away to set our stall out in the Premiership survival game.

Our current squad is just not strong enough, our defence is too weak, Shawcross is the only one that would I would be picking in our current back 4, Dicko will be a good squad player for next season, Griffin is just not good enough, he was skinned week in week out at Derby last season, Cort is not good enough for the Premiership.

I can understand it's not easy to attract the better quality players when they know we are going to be fighting for survival, but it's key we attract the right kind of player that wants to pull on the jersey and be proud to play for Stoke.

I don't know what the next 13 days will bring??? Maybe TP, PC & TS will amaze us and this time next week we will be screaming from the roof tops at the signing of Zigic and defence will have have been strengthened too...Who knows but it will be a week of looking at this board every second of the day for me ;D

We need IMHO 5 more signings to have a fighting chance.......

[CalgaryPotter]

I'm not sure how many we need but I know that the current crop are nowhere near the mark.
We all slag Hull and WBA off but look at them, for all the shite Hull have bought if a couple turn out well, Boateng and Halmosi for example they have improved what was a shite squad (excluding Campbell).
WBA seem to have bought a few players and bought well in my opinion. No big name charlie's, just players who some scout has picked out for them at reasonable money.

[lust4life]

Good points you make there lads and I totally agree that the current squad is nowhere near strong enough for the best league in the world. At times last season our defence was exposed and looked vunerable so fook knows what some prem attackers would do to us. And we need some creativity in the middle of the park as well as a wide left player who actually would look comfortable playing there and not have the tendency to drift infield thus making us play narrow. Come on Stoke the players are there,just go and get em before anyone else does.

[Done it for scfcbuxton]

Olofinjana is a creative centre midfielder so thats that sorted

[CalgaryPotter]

Playing narrow...........won't the new ridiculously small pitch none of our first team squad are used to lead to us doing that?

[lust4life]

Ye good point but I suppose they done that to try and make other teams play narrow as well and stop the likes of Bentley and Ronaldo from having room.