What's really striking isn't so much the headline, but also how shallow the service is in general. Pulis, Martinez, and Poyet are for various reasons not likely to be at their clubs next year, and after that Pardew is in the top 10 with 2+ years at Newcastle.
Surprised Pulis left, but maybe the Stoke Chairman wanted a football team. or he wanted to change the code of rugby... lol... I can't see who will do better though since Stoke is a small club really. Pulis may not have been top of the "sexy football" listings, but he still made Stoke a competitive club for its size.
the bookies have mark hughes as fav, with di matteo then gus poyet. i could see di matteo ending up at stoke.
hmm... not so many Arsene out people around now lol... I'm still sceptical of him, in all honesty. this summer will be crucial, but i'll give him another two seasons or so with money to spend, and if there is no improvement, then he needs to go. If we get some top quality players, then nothing less than a league challenge can do. or at minimum one of the cups.
Go look up Stoke's transfer budget. There are plenty of managers who would have loved to have had the resources he had over the past years.
you havent paid attention to Pulis' transfer dealings. He wasted a lot of money and the fans were pissed. Thats why he got booted. He had no idea how to make Stoke better.
Pulis is a shocking manager. You can't spend the amount of money he has over the years and have a team play like they're a ****** rugby team. Also, I don't understand what he was doing during the winter transfer window. They had scored the least amount of goals in the premier league up to that point, and he goes out and gets an injured Brek Shea and a championship goalie who's currently on loan. Not to meantion, he's a massive ****.
You can't deny he did an excellent job the last part of the season. You also can't deny that the hole we were in was mostly due to his poor roster management. Nothing has really changed, he just earned a small reprieve.
Go ask the Bolton supporters how things turned out for them after fat Sam left. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
^^ That...too for a mid- to low-mid level team. Nothing wrong with direct football if you know how to play it.
The only thing I really hated about Stoke was their profligate dirty play. You can play crap style as long as it works, but millions of professional fouls and broken limbs is garbage.
His league positions prior to this season were not that bad. again, stoke is not a big club, so there is a limit to what they can spend and on whom. many clubs in the division are more or less perpetual mid-table/lower top ten clubs based on their size/resources. the only exceptions are liverpool, villa, and maybe Toon and Sunderland. As for rugby football, well all managers have their own playing style. we've been spoilt maybe by almost 17 years of sexy football lol..
Back to the subject at hand, check out this interview by Wenger... http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/48274/arsene-wenger Dude is no doubt wicked smart & insightful. But can he analyze things as well within the subjectivity of his own team as he does as an outsider to other teams & leagues?
he had no idea how to make stoke better you do this a lot. You type without actually fact checking. Pulis has net spent something like 80+ million GBP the last 5 seasons http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/mar/20/tony-pulis-stoke-city thats more than every club in the premiership except City and Chelsea. Im not speaking for Arsenal fans, I am speaking for Stoke fans. What are you talking about?
pulis isn't exactly intelligent as a coach and is english, so don't expect improvement prince! he is your mid table slogger and i expect stoke to get relegated now he's gone pulis was probably at his optimum coaching level, u won't get many british managers taking sides to a better level and progressing very often sadly
And one more thing I just read, was the stats of the season... http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/48246/behind-the-numbers- One thing that stood out for me was that our 10 game run-in was the 2nd best in the last 18yrs! 26pts out of 30... second only to 2002 when we went a perfect 30. Again, kudos go not only to the players but to Wenger and his staff for pulling that off!
credit where it's due for the end, but it has to be tempered by fair harsh criticism for the awful start............