Let's try to be a bit more realistic & hopeful.

[Beardy200]

OK i know we're all disappointed with events over the last few weeks and Pulis and a few players are coming in for a lot of stick. A lot of points are fair play and you can understand the reasoning but others just smell of over-reaction, anger and unrealism.

This is our 1st year in the prem (and Pulis's) and half way through we are still right there. Personally i had worries we may be cut adrift by now so even though i'm disappointed recently i still would have taken this position pre-season as we are within touching distance of lots of teams.

Now things have been shit recently and Pulis is getting slated for some of his selections. We have to remember that we have had a really bad and dense run of injuries & suspensions that have left us really short. I don't think for a second Puilis wants to start with Pericard but at the moment there is not much else he can do.

Now Kitson, Lawrence & Sidibe's injuries and Fuller's stupidity cant be Pulis's fault surely can they? Now why he bought Tonge and Soares and yet barely plays them is more confusing. However judging on today's performance maybe we have our answer?

I'm going to try and take the positives out of it while i still can:

1.) Lawrence, Fuller, Sidibe & Kitson will not be out forever. Even if they all played with Jan's fixtures we may get nothing anyway. At least come Feb we should have our key players fit and raring to go and we can take on our run of easier fixtures with our best and fittest team.

2.) The transfer window is now open and who knows what surprises we may have in store. Again i'm not panicking we haven't got any yet as the fixtures are very tough anyway so probably no big problem.

3.) West Ham, Pompey and perhaps Newcastle may be about to lose some of their best players which can only cause them major problems and leave the remaining players considering their future which will always affect performances.

4.) Out of the cups now so we will have less fixtures which will again help our chances of them all staying fit.


OK hopefully that will help one or two try and keep the faith a bit longer as we really don't need this negativity filtering into the crowd at the games or things could turn sour very quickly. Our crowd has been amazing this year and have definitely won a few extra points. I just hope that isn't all about to change. When we go behind is when we need the crowd the most and if it goes from encouragement to 'oh god not again' negativity the players will know the difference and they need us as some of them are obviously not good enough.

Keep the faith lads & lasses, we can still do it - GOAAAARN STOKE

[Beardy200]

Lol OK i posted this too soon after the result and it's way too long

Still ... some seem to have calmed down now (a little) so TTT.

If it disappears rapidly again i'll just assume nobody gives a shit what i think .... and fair play if i was you i wouldn't either

[Carrot]

I think I best comment on it since no-one else has lol.

Tbh, I think you've just about summed it up really TP although I'm not convinced that there's going to be many quality "surprise signings" in January although naturally I hope I'm wrong. Quite a good summary tbh, fair play ;D

[stokelad84]

Thats a good post

[OldStokie]

This result hasn't upset me like it has many others, TP. It's par for the course with Stoke going out of the FA Cup to lower league opposition. I'm far more concerned that we get our very thin squad of players who are good enough to play in this league up to full strength. They do ok. I'm not even putting too much faith in any new arrivals. Given the quality of many of Pulis's buys, they might even complicate the situation.

OS.

[bogus]

It was always going to be a struggle to stay up. Too many people don't have the stomach for the struggle.
We're goal difference away from being outside the bottom three with 18 games left.
Yes he's a stubborn, pragmatic man and some of the signings may be a bit questionable, but eh, we're still in it. And what happened to all the "he deserves this season to prove it" opinions from earlier in the year?
Struggling teams, and we always WERE going to struggle, have bad runs, it comes with the territory. Some people just need to grow some balls and deal with it a bit better.
I have no idea if we will stay up or not, but whilst we're still as close to it as we are, with so many games to go, it's plain ridiculous to be calling for the manager's head at the minute.

[johnnysoul60]

The challenge for the transfer window is to bring at least one player in who can make a big difference, we had been doing really well at home until mama got injured but have been pretty poor away all season.

However a fair bit of the home form was down to Delaps throws and we really do now need another option. In these days of computer analysis it was only going to be a short term weapon

Lawrence getting back wil give us more than any of our other wide players ,but he isnt the answer and apart from Fuller and Mama we are so weak in attack unless we see a very different side to Kitson than we have so far.

I thnk we are at a turning point and without at least one player to give us a real lift are in real danger of going down.