It isn't the losing that hurts, it's the manner...

[vestanpance]

I bet his saggy cheeks were flapping to the dozen and his eyes wide open with disbelief

It's definitely heading down the shitter, after a frankly positive beginning.

;D ;D

[Deleted]

The bottom line is, our best player by a mile was on the bench along with a player we have spent 5 or 6 million on and a player who scored and assisted about 24 goals last season.

Is there any explaining that?

[Timmypotter]

You're right Vestan - there is no great tactical nouse in sticking 11 behind the ball and trying to ride your luck, but I don't always see this as a tactical failure. Maybe it's something to do with starting to support Stoke when we were 3rd division and crap - it's bred a lack of ambition into me

[vestanpance]

Mate i don't think it's a redundant tactic, i just think on occassions we have to be prepared to grasp the mantle. It really is no good waiting for a poor team in this league, because there aren;t any. We have to be bold enough to make our own luck.

To me, it's currently like a WWI General who keeps sending his troops over the top...it's game enough, and noone can question their commitment, but it's ultimately futile and show a lack of tactical know-how.

[Deleted]

Vestan good post and i agree with most of it i.e team selection is bizarre, some of the buys seem strange as they never seem to feature even on the bench half the time etc. however i think there are some matches like last night and the Blackburn game where TP can't solely be blamed for our inadequacies on the pitch. On those particular occasions i feel completely let down by the players out there who seemed to have none of the passion, pride or commitment that we showed in games such as Liverpool (both games) Man U boxing day , Chelsea Stamford Bridge for example. So i agree in general but not last night,that was a shambles by the men on the pitch as far as i could see

[mermaidsal]

Jan 28, 2009 13:40:02 GMT vestanpance said:

Mate i don;t think it's a redundant tactic, on occassions it might work out, but not every time, especially agianst opposition who are not having the best of times...let's face it, this is the Premier League, every team is a good team. aren't they really?

To me, it's like a WWI General who keeps sending his troops over the top...it's game enough, and noone can question their commitment, but it's ultimately futile and show a lack of tactical know-how.

Tone as General Melchett is worryingly convincing at the moment And Cressy as Baldrick...

[LDE76]

Jan 28, 2009 13:48:50 GMT mermaidsal said:

Jan 28, 2009 13:40:02 GMT vestanpance said:

Mate i don;t think it's a redundant tactic, on occassions it might work out, but not every time, especially agianst opposition who are not having the best of times...let's face it, this is the Premier League, every team is a good team. aren't they really?

To me, it's like a WWI General who keeps sending his troops over the top...it's game enough, and noone can question their commitment, but it's ultimately futile and show a lack of tactical know-how.

Tone as General Melchett is worryingly convincing at the moment And Cressy as Baldrick...

Wouldn't Cresswell be more suited to the role of Captain Darling?



And I really wish someone would come up with a cunning plan that cannot fail...

[ted1965]

The ability of a manager to see problems and then change them is all you can ask, if a manager continues to make the same mistakes again and again then it’s time to question his ability. I find it difficult to understand how he thinks at times.

We always get the same old statements the one about we will only bring in players who are better than we have, that’s what we want a manager to say but saying it and then bringing in Soares and Tonge from nowhere on transfer deadline day makes a mockery of such statements. It was money wasted and would have been better if we had kept our powder dry, did either improve on what we had, it would seem the manager didn’t think so because they have hardly played many games.

I have never been convinced about Tone but he achieved more than I ever believed he would and I was as delighted to be proved wrong and really want him to do the same again. No matter what some think it’s not about individuals and whether you like them or not it’s about the club irrespective of who’s the manager, owner or anyone else connected with it. I just want to feel when we go out on a match day we are giving ourselves the best possible chance of winning, it’s when you see the side giving up so much possession and basically camping on our 18 yard box that really makes me scratch my head and say what the hell are we actually trying to achieve here.

[ted1965]

Oh we have a cunning plan but sadly they like Baldricks always end up with more problems than solutions.

I wish someone would remind Tony Hogmanay Melchett that he shot Darling in the foot and then sent him over the top, good luck Cressie it’s been nice having you around now it’s time to sacrifice yourself for the cause.

[boothenbus]

Wish Cresswell would have scored last night but the truth is he just can't put chances away.

[vestanpance]

He's a good chap boothenbus without question, and it is his job to try and get picked for football matches. I have nothing but good things to say about him as a man.

The irrefutable fact is however he isn't good enough to play in this league.

[Deleted]

well said vestan. there is only one man to blame for this mess, tony pulis and his dire tactics. i for one can't stand much more of this. why he keeps playing cresswell is beyond me. o.k. he works his socks off,but with no end result. for heavens sake will he never learn. i think he's doing it on purpose just to sicken us all off.admit it tony pulis, you've got things wrong for quite a while now, change before it's too late. we still have a chance to reach mid table safety.

[Titan Uranus]

Great Thread

full of reasoned, thought out, sensible posts

I think the original post is what most people are thinking at the moment, even the rimmers.

[vestanpance]

i think he's doing it on purpose just to sicken us all off.

You'd like to think not robo, but you'd also like to think that a manager would not deliberately send teams out to be as boring as possible as a result of a boardroom bust-up with the potential to alienate core support for years to come, but he did that.

I just read the sentinel site to see if he could give me any new insight, but as per usual, it's the same old nonsense. Sad really, but it does seem there is a change in the air with regard to his tactics, away from home at least.

Let's hope he takes heed. Fat fucking chance

[thestatusquo]

Good post guys. It has been mentioned on another thread but it's like we're stuck in a weird groundhog day but we don't seem to know we can change things if we want to. TP has to change it if we are to survive. I don't think our home form will be enough. We will need a couple of away wins and at the moment I can't see that happening.

SQ

[dandare]

Superb post Vestan. I couldn't agree more with everything you've said. TP should read it and learn.

[PottersBrim]

Best post I've read about the whole shite situation we find ourselves in.

In fact, if I were admin - I'd pin it to the top of the board.

[jimisastokie]

I liked the attitude of some of the players in the second half, but the first half was abismal. I didnt feel proud to be a stokie at that point. But however, well done to beattie, maybe he will inspire kitson!

[mik06]

What a superb well reasoned post, sums up every thing i feel is wrong completely. The mindset that Stoke away go out with is i feel that of a small club living the dream against far superior opposition, bulled up to god like figures by our manager , every pre match interview is always about how good the opposition are and how tough it will be(even Southend a few seasons ago). The team then go out in awe of what for the most part are average teams some thing they arnt allowed to do at home because of the backing from the crowd. We have acquitted ourselves and performed better against the top teams well apart from against the shit at OT because we have gone at it like a lower league team against the cream and in honesty rode an awful lot of luck. I don't know the answers but wouldn't it be nice to at least have ago. if it don't work then what is lost we conna get much lower.

[tony harrison]

Jan 28, 2009 13:06:55 GMT rabbigan said:

Vestan and Ted,
Two excellent, thoughtful contributions.
My own concerns mirror points which you have both raised but I have to add my greater concern is the lack of understanding of what is needed and the managers inability to overcome his negative thinking.
1. Bigging up the opposition- Pre match everybody is better than us.
2. Absolute lack of belligerence and attack away from home.
3. Not knowing what is needed defensively midfield and up front.
4. Apparent belief of Cresswells suitability for any role in the team ahead of players specialised in such positions.
5. How can you start a game last night with Cresswell in front of Kitson and Fuller if your intent is to win.
6. The manager complains we start slow away from home but it is absolutely obvious that the instructions to the team are just try and keep it tight for half an hour and not to come flying out of the blocks and try and get something ourselves.
7. He did actually say last night that "away from home we MIGHT
have to try something a bit different."
8. I have now reached a stage of such frustration that if Radio Stoke inform me before the match on Saturday that Cresswell starts I may just turn around and go home, because it so describes the whole ethos of negativity that surrounds the team.

Totally agree, the ref to Vestan and Ted both posts spot on. There are a lot of people thinking along the same lines.

I am one of them, who can't understand this away logic. It hasn't worked all season so change it and stop telling everyone how good the opposition is Pulis.

[altair]

A fair post Vestan, and I agree with it all. What hurts is: Burnley - got at them, frightened them to death, praised to the heavens. Stoke - bloody useless, laughing stock.

[clactonpotter]

Perfect distillation,eloquently put.

[thepremierbanksy]

Is the team selection, cresswell aside, really so baffling? Read the pre-match thread and i tihnk you'll find 90% of teams were the same as what we put out, with kits/fuller in for cresswell. Some also had lawrence, but let's not forget he has just come back from a lengthy lay off, who knows if he is properly fit yet.

Last night's result and performance were piss poor, partly due to pulis and his approach to the game (which is not going to radically change by the way), and partly due to the players just not turning up, which i view as their fucking fault, not the manager's.

We're not a million miles off being good enough, but neither are we there, and you'd say at current we are on course to go down. However given the time left and the acquisitions of beattie and etherington, I still think we can evolve enough in the remaining fixtures to get enough points for safety, especially given that 7/8 top 4 fixtures have been played - certainly not the time to radically alter our approach and go all west brom.

This is the way it will be, so toughen up cause you're going to have to deal with it i'm afraid.

[lew86]

Jan 28, 2009 15:21:33 GMT altair said:

A fair post Vestan, and I agree with it all. What hurts is: Burnley - got at them, frightened them to death, praised to the heavens. Stoke - bloody useless, laughing stock.

We didnt get that sort of praise when we beat Spurs or Arsenal earlier on, just loads of stick about our "tactics"

[Deleted]

'We didnt get that sort of praise when we beat Spurs or Arsenal earlier on, just loads of stick about our "tactics"'

Burnley were praised because of the way they approached the game and still managed to get a result (not forgetting that they're a Championship side).

Some of you can't get it into your thick skulls that the majority of pundits aren't going to praise a side that's spent £25+ million and still manages to play pisspoor football along with pisspoor defensive formations.

We go out to kill the game and play for the lucky knockout punch whilst others, which includes the likes of Burnley, punch away for 90 minutes.

Nobody can argue against the fact that we're appalling as an away side but we've also got to admit that our home results have largely come from set pieces and the fact that certain sides have made the effort to come after us thus allowing us to hit them on the break.

If, at the Britannia, the away side plays a conventional defensive away formation and game plan the resulting game is usually a pile of steaming goat jism cos we haven't any attacking nouse whatsoever. And what pisses me off about this is that it doesn't matter what league we're in or who we're playing - the approach is exactly the same.

Great post Vestan by the way

[johnnysoul60]

There is no doubt the approach to away games has to change, just lok at our results.

As for last night, spurs have talented individuals, but our defending was as bad as at Blackburn, particularly on the first and third, its possible to allow the second as good play by Defoe

We never really got at them second half and that hurts but still opened them up pretty easily for the goal.

I 'm not demanding we play suicide football like west brom but we should have our best players on the park e.g. Lawrence who creates and works arrd. We need to get back to the type of away performances that helped to get us up.

If we had defended properly last night and had our best players on the park from the start, there is a chance we could have taken a point and thats whats eating away at me, with such a soft early goal spurs were confident and built on that

[Deleted]

'If we had defended properly'

I never quite get this and is one of the main reasons why I get bored listening to Alan Hansen.

A team can defend 'properly' for 90 minutes but can still conceed goals. The right pass, shot or movement by the opposition will generally cause damage so to counteract this you have to be able to inflict some damage at the other end and put their defence under the microscope.

We play a generally defensive formation but, maybe due to the fact that our defenders aren't the best in the Prem, continue to get found out. Our unwillingness to throw men forward means that when we do concede we limit our chances of getting back into the game.

You could argue that we don't attack properly?

[spangle]

VP bang on mate

[heroesof72]

Vestan,

Tremendous post Vestan. You deserve full praise for that.

55 wins from 150 games in charge speaks volumes.

Clean your original post up and send it to all media types....they may not listen nor agree but that way you'll give yourself a better chance of picking up The Nobel Book Prize!!

[banburypotter]

no war and peace novel from me because vestan and teds analogy says everything i have been thinking of late.