T P wants to extend his contract.

[OldStokie]

The point I was making when I asked the question..."What if the board say no", has somewhat passed you all by.

Over the last number of years, our club has paid out an awful lot of money to pay up manager's contracts. It's a quick road to ruination and they have to keep things on a level plane. At the moment, things are going well for TP but, just as the team are doing well now, as we know to our cost in the past, things can change. I'm not at all knocking TP, just talking about reality here.

He has the rest of this season and then another 12 months on his contract at the moment or thereabouts and IMHO, he should be negootiating 6 months from the end of his contract, not now. If he's so enamoured with us then he won't want to leave and go elsewhere.

When Quitter left this club, I became a complete cynic about managers. I want one of them to buck the trend of greed and show that they really care for my club. If TP does that, he will get my absolute loyalty.

But, if by some divine miracle he gets us to The Premiership, he should get his just rewards and a new lucrative rolling contract. I would accept that as fair reward for his efforts.

OS.

[lurcherthelurker]

Pissy slippers, does this mean you are nearly a convert? ;D

Go on, admit it in public, your quite happy with him at the moment

(even if he does still baffle us with his tactics/tictacs)

[romfordstokie]

But surely if TP and Rudgey let players run their contracts down to just 6 months we’d be calling them incompetent. The board should not simply give him what he wants but they should gladly enter negotiations in a most positive frame of mind.

[DavidY]

Fornside

You said

"Looking at the managers in my time following Stoke, I'd rate Waddo as the best by a long way. Macari would be a clear second (although TP could dethrone him in time) and Mills and Durban had their supporters - although I was not convinced."

Alan Durban got this club promoted to what is now the Premiership and established us there as a competitive team without spending a lot of money. Without wanting to put down what TP has done so far I'd say he's got quite a way to go before he matches that achievement.

[Lakeland Potter]

Mick (OS), in my opinion (which as you know is always humble ) you are very wrong. Starting to re-negotiate the contract in December, which is the timetable you envisage, would mean diverting the manager at the midpoint in the season - just when he needs to be free to concentrate on promotion (or even better, consolidation in the Prem).

Football has a close season which should be used to renegotiate contracts - lets use it. Most "rolling contracts" which I have come across (and we even have them for some posts in the Civil Service) are renewed, if it felt appropriate to do so, a year in advance. That stops the worry about difficult negotiations going "down to the wire". Normally TP would have been given a three year contract so it would have been running for 2 years this summer - ample time to judge whether he should be offered a new one. Its not his fault that his contract started mid season - that's down to the board's misjudgement of a jug eared quitter!

[Lakeland Potter]

David it would help if you didn't quote me out of context. I also said that TP was ahead of all our managers in the past 50 years "apart from those four".

I am not 100% convinced of where Durban should rank in the list as I seem to recall that we were closer to the top sides in terms of resources in those days than we are now. Our income today is (roughly) 15% - 20% of the income available to even a mediocre Premiership Club which hampers us as far as attracting players is concerned. Durban didn't have that constraint. Despite that I have put him in our top four managers of the past 50 years - I don't know what your point is.

[DavidY]

Fornside

I can't find where you said:

"I also said that TP was ahead of all our managers in the past 50 years "apart from those four" - unless its in another post.

In the post I quoted you clearly ranked Waddo as no. 1 and Macari as no.2 and then mentioned Mills and Durban as having their supporters - although you were not convinced. This implied to me that you were ranking TP alongside, or ahead, of those two. Incidentally I think that bracketing Durban with Mills is pretty unjustified and shows you're not giving Durban the credit he deserves. Mills did a decent job for the first couple of years but then was never able to push on and lost his way.

I think your point about the gap between the 'top sides' and the others is a fair one and its probably harder to stay in the Premiership now than it was when we went up under Durban. But I don't think it was any easier getting promotion from our division then than it is now and in fact I think that since there are no teams in the first division with owners who are putting in millions its a reasonably level playing field at the moment as far as resources go.

[Lakeland Potter]

David, my actual words were "Apart from those four, TP has no competition from the rest of our managers in the past 50 years. "

As far as getting promotion these days compared to the days of Durban is concerned - I would say we currently have less resources than at least half the clubs in Division 1. I don't seem to recall that was the case in Durban's days. Apart from anything else, there are parachute payments (£5 mil pa?)being made to up to 6 clubs in the division - ie those who have been relegated in the previous two years. There are also clubs (like Leicester last year) who manage to write off most of their debt when they went into administration.

I stick by my comments that clubs such as Stoke find it much harder to get out of Div 1 than similar clubs did to get out of Div 2 in Durban's day.

[DavidY]

Fornside

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on your last point - I certainly wouldn't go along with the idea that it is "much harder" to get out of this division now than it was in Durban's day - I might go along with a tiny bit harder .

Yes, there are parachute payments but these don't necessarily compensate for the massive player contracts many relegated clubs have entered into. Some of these clubs, far from being competitive in Division 1, have actually plummeted disastrously - Bradford, Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday are obvious examples. Even this season West Ham and Sunderland have had to be selling clubs.

As for us having less resources than at least half the clubs in Division 1 I'm not sure about that. I know TP likes to emphasise our lack of resources but he's got his own reasons for that. I suspect we're one of relatively few clubs who are net spenders on transfers this season
- maybe Ilford Dave can post some Soccerbase statistics on this ;D - and despite what is said about our wages the calibre of players we have been able to attract suggests to me they're not too dusty either.

[Lakeland Potter]

Set against the tribunal fee for JOC, the fee for Freezer and the nominal fee for Serghei, I doubt if we have spent anything on transfer fees. Signing on fees will be another matter, of course.

As regards the teams with parachute payments some, like WBA, probably spent less on wages than the payments received. Others such as West Ham showed a hefty profit on the ex-prem players they sold. The fact that they are still millions in debt is another matter entirely! ;D

[kristo]

Mr Pulis is doing very well right now at keeping the club in mid-table. He has really improved as a manager in recent months and which is a pleasant surprise.
To extend his contract should be discussed after the season is over and he should concentrate on the team, not on his contract to the club.
Maybe we will win a playoff, and that would be wonderful.

One thing, I can´t see Mr Pulis as a Premiership manager, he must show more stability IMHO.

[Lakeland Potter]

You reckon he neds to show more stability Kristo? He seems pretty stable to me - but that may be because Rudgey keeps his blood pressure down! ;D

[kristo]

That could be right fornside, it´s good to have a man like Rudgey calm down poeple. ;D

Maybe I´m too far away from the battlefield in Stoke to
give any opinions on what´s going on there, but I have my thoughts about it.

Cheers

VK

[OldStokie]

Grandad, you are perfectly entitled to air your views. You've been a 'Stokie' for a long time and are not a newcomer to our club's affairs. I always take your views on board as legitimate.

John, You say I am very wrong and then you tell me that TP will have 6 months left on his contract at the end of the season. So, my estimation of his time here was a little out but that would bear out what I was saying which was..."he should be negotiating 6 months from the end of his contract".

I can live with that but if I were the board, I would then offer him a rolling contract and not a fixed term time contract like say a 3 year contract. As I said earlier, after Quitter, I learnd a very valuable lesson that greed is in most employee's minds when they sign the dotted line. Is it wrong to want to see someone buck that trend?

TP is doing fine here. He is well liked by the majority. He says he is very happy here. He's getting much happier with the people he's working for and the players who are around him. He has much going for him including, at the moment, secure tenure of contract because the board are most unlikely to offer him lesser terms but should incrase his terms of service if he continues to progress as he has done. Is that not enough to a fair minded man?

Mick.

[Lakeland Potter]

Mick, you misunderstand me. TP will have a year left on his contract at the end of this season - so starting to renegotiate 6 months before the end of the contract would mean starting in December - which is the wrong time in my opinion.

I have no problems with rolling contracts but the wage to be paid still has to be negotiated even if the roll over is almost automatic. The time for that negotiation is in the summer break with, as has happened now, the opening salvos being fired towards the end of the season.

I don't regard TP's comments this week as a bad thing. His opening shot (if we can call call it that in the spirit of the Good Ship Stokie) is to say that he wants to extend his contract - I am happy with that. Caertainly I'd be pissed off if he didn't want to extend it!

[OldStokie]

So, and let me get this right. He still is only halfway through his contract. In that case I would tell him to come back a little later and we'll talk.

Contracts, contracts. They aren't worth the paper they're writen on anyway. Let's get back to good old fashioned loyalty from both sides. SH need to demonstrate that too BTW after the way they treated Gudjon.

Mick.

[Lakeland Potter]

I think what happed, Mick, is that Quitters who signed nearly two years ago, had a three year contract. When TP joined half way through the season they gave him a two and a half year contract which is due to end at the time Quitter's contract would have done.

So, this summer TP will have a year left - the same time as Quitters would have had if he had not quit! ;D

An interesting point is that the first year of TP's contract was virtually free to our board as we got one year's compensation for Quitters contract from Sunderland.

Fornside's prediction is that TP's new contract will be done and dusted by the end of June.

[Olgrligm]

.

[daverichards]

fornside said:

Fornside's prediction is that TP's new contract will be done and dusted by the end of June.

I'm not asking you to predict the lottery numbers next week then

[TheWiseMaster]

But he did get a new contract!

[daverichards]

yes in june 2005,not june 2004 as Fornside had so expertly predicted ;D

[Lakeland Potter]

Bah Humbug - what's a few months in the great scheme of things! ;D