Now to make this perfectly clear am I a massive Tony Pulis fan, I will continue to admire him and have faith in him after not only taking Stoke City back to the promised land, but keeping them there, BUT, I do have the odd concern, and I hear they are:
ALL THINGS TRANSFER MARKET
Throughout his years in management Pulis has grown a reputation of being someone who can works wonder on a tight budget, being the Assistant to Harry Redknapp at Bournemouth he has certainly learnt the tricks and the trades of wheeling and dealing, and generally, you would have to say Pulis holds a good record in the market with signing players. But as we enter the second premiership season niggling concerns are starting to rear there head. Many players linked, only one tied down, and the window is edging closer to the closing. The question on many Stoke fans lips is why are we failing to tie these deals down, a lack of status? a un-willingness to pay teams asking prices? Or a reluctance to meet players terms and conditions? For me it is the latter, we have already shown we are willing to pay the transfer fee's, and in the cases of many players, James Collins being one, the fee's have been agreed, the stumbling block has AGAIN proven to the personal terms. I don't think it is that we aren't able to attract the players, we are a financially stable Premier League club who has PROVEN they can stay in the division, I just think Pulis is trying to make every potential new signing make a wage cut, and the fact of the matter is, if we want to compete at this level again, we have to pay the inflation of prices in todays game to get the right players to beat the drop. It's a well known fact that you can't sit on what you've achieved in this division because the standard increases by the season, Reading tried to sit on what they achieved following a 9th place finish in the Premier League, the next season they were relegated. In my opinion we still need around 4-5 new faces, Danny Higginbotham for as solid a job as he does is NOT a left-back, he is a centre-back, and we need someone who can come in and do a job there. We desperately need a creative central midfielder, Whitehead looks a good addition but he's more a sit deep and break play down sort of player, the only argueable creative central player we have is Whelan, and for me he is yet to fully warrant the fee we paid for him despite some glimmers of promise. Another forward to compete is necessary, a Fuller-esc forward ideally, someone with pace and trickery, someone who can turn a game, for all the qualitys Mama, Beattie and Kitson have, they are all very similar. If we leave our investment until January it could be too late, whilst points are more important at the business end of the season, a good start and consolidating league position by Christmas is also vital. We all know Pulis wont move quickly in the market, but I just get the feeling as more targets slip by, we are going from Plan A, to Plan B, to Plan C, and in the end it could result in us taking a gamble of ' Plan D ' and not investing with someone who can improve on what we have.
THE TACTICS AWAY FROM HOME
Now I know that if you go to Anfield, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge etc...are the home team turns up you are going to struggle to get anything regardless of the approach, but that doesn't become an excuse for sticking with an approach that has PROVEN to be dodgy on the road. Now I don't think we should travel to away games and attack, attack, attack, leave ourselves vulnerable for 90 minutes and lose ridiculously every week, but I do think we should commit more men forward in offensive positions, and not pick a line-up based on not losing the tie rather than to try and win it. Cresswell's inclusion yesterday summed up exactly what Pulis intended to do, sit deep, try and give the opposition as little time on the ball as possible, and try and snatch the goal from any throw-in or set-piece. We CANNOT travel to ANY side in this division and allow them to dictate play, no side in this division is a mug, and most sides will definately break you down over the course of 90 mins, and just like Torres did after a matter of minutes yesterday, our game plan was argueably in tatters. Yesterday I was deeply frustrated not to see Fuller start, in Liverpool's defence were two young lads ( Insua and Ayala ) who have limited experience at this level, we can still stay cautious whilst starting Fuller and letting him cause them problems! We did have decent spells of posession, and the odd chance, I just think we looked far too direct, predictable, and at times short of ideas in the final third. We have to be able to mix play up, when you become predictable sides learn how to counter-act you and points become difficult. Birmingham on Saturday is a game we have EVERY chance of winning, but if we sit deep and try to soak up play for another 90 minutes we will struggle to come away with anything more than a point. Now I know we stayed up last season despite poor away form, but the task of having to repeat last seasons home form is a big ask, and there is a great likelyhood that more points will need to be accumulated to keep us in the division this time round. Pulis got the home tactics spot on last season, we did generally well in the market despite argueably being able to attract LESS players! The fault last season was the tactics away from home, and evidence yesterday suggests that could be the same.
I believe we will beat the drop, but we need to give ourselves a fighting chance of doing so and not surrender points an opposition turf before the whistle has blown. We taken giant leaps forward, we MUST continue to move.
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