Stoke are an easy side to dislike, but in attempting to compete on four fronts this season they’re carrying the hopes of the dwindling numbers who still enjoy straight knockout football in this country.
You never have to wait long during a Stoke City match before a commentator, usually Alan Parry, mentions that their style of play isn’t going to find favour among football’s purists.
Paying to watch Tony Pulis’ side is essentially forking over your hard earned to observe an applied maths lesson. Statistics in football have absolutely exploded in recent years with the boom in technology, sports science and things like Pro Zone to the point where managers (admittedly this was the hapless Steve Kean) come out after home defeats to Everton and declare themselves satisfied because their team achieved 60 “penalty box entries” during the game. At Stoke they’ve decided that for every x number of penalty box entries y goals are scored and so they focus on getting that ball into that penalty box by any means possible.
Pulis rails against any criticism of the team he has taken from the middle of the Championship to a consolidated place in the middle of the Premiership and an FA Cup final. Speaking specifically about Rory Delap’s infamous monster throw ins Pulis says: "The people who moaned about it most were the people who couldn't deal with it. That will always be the case. They'll be trying to get a rule change to stop it. But it's exciting and our supporters love it, and teams don't like defending against it.”
It is hard to deny that watching the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd go to the Britannia Stadium and get properly roughed up can be terrific entertainment. The great Sir Alex Ferguson reduced to snivelling and whinging about the lack of protection afforded to his Spanish goalkeeper who, despite costing £18.9m, doesn’t like big throw ins aimed at big strikers standing near him – priceless. But the whole approach does simply boil down to applied maths, and when they’re not riling our new friend Andre Villas Boas it’s all about as interesting as long division and just as difficult to enjoy. But, for the purists, this causes something of a conundrum.
The future of knockout cup competitions in this country is hanging by the slenderest of threads. The League Cup has already been reduced to little more than a youth team proving ground for the top 40 clubs. In the first round this year I sat through QPR Reserves going through the motions and losing to League One strugglers Rochdale at Loftus Road where three sides of the ground were closed, then I watched Sheff Wed v Blackpool on the TV where both sides made ten changes from their league teams and fought out a 0-0 draw, again in front of three closed stands.
The FA Cup risks going the same way – its replays cannot be long for this world, no doubt shortly to head the same way as the League Cup’s initial two legged ties. The Europa League meanwhile has been turned into a bloated, unloved farce by UEFA. Fulham have already played 12 European matches this season with at least another two to come just to reach the halfway point when a load of Champions League failures parachute in and, in all likelihood, knock them straight out of a competition they’ve been competing in since June. June.
The Premier League is king. The television money, gate receipts, merchandising potential, sponsorship opportunities, global exposure and everything else that it offers make it a cash cow that every team in this country and a couple on Scotland want to climb aboard and ride around on forever. Anything that brings the slightest threat to a team’s position in the top flight has to be immediately exterminated – clubs with long injury lists moan about transfer windows, teams with a Boxing Day game at Newcastle followed by a New Year’s Eve fixture at Swansea plead for a mid-winter break, and almost universally clubs see progress in cup competitions as a distraction and chance to pick up injuries and suspensions rather than an ambition or aspiration.
Personally I think this fear of cup progress at the perceived expense of league positions is both a load of nonsense and a terrible shame. I’d suggest imposing rules on clubs about the amount of first team players they must pick for cup games but then they tried that in the Johnston’s Paint Trophy and when I foolishly gave Sheffield Wednesday another chance on my television screen after the Blackpool snoozeathon back in August I was treated to Gary Megson substituting three first team players in the first 15 minutes, including his goalkeeper after 20 seconds, in a Trophy match at Bradford – all done with a horribly smug grin across his ugly monkey’s head. Twat.
The problem is the evidence is mounting. Fulham - with a better side on paper than they had last season, less injuries and arguably a better manager – are struggling badly at the bottom end of the Premiership while coping with the Europa League’s ridiculous scheduling. Birmingham sunk from lower midtable into the relegation zone and eventually the Championship last season after winning the League Cup and West Ham went with them after decent runs in both domestic knockouts. In neither case was this the reason for their demise in my opinion, the blame lay with the respective boards and piss rank managers, but the cup competition prosecutors added the file to the evidence bundle all the same. We already have this ridiculous situation, exacerbated and repeated mainly by Aston Villa, where a team spends all year talking about European qualification and then having made it can’t wait to field a reserve team and get the hell out in case it affects their bid for European qualification next year.
And so it rests with Stoke City to provide some much needed proof that success in the cup and the league is not mutually exclusive. They’re an easy club to dislike for so many reasons but if, like me, you value our cup competitions then you should be wishing them well this season. At the end of the day football as about cups and medals – we only have three opportunities each year to achieve that and essentially, unless another Sheikh turns up, clubs like Stoke and QPR could play for the next 100 years and not get even close to winning the league which leaves only the cups. Surely having a cup winner’s medal to show the grandchildren is better than some story about consolidating fourteenth position in the bloody Premier League? Surely a Wembley win is what the fans dream of over scraping survival with a late season away point at West Brom? But then it was widely, rightly, accepted that QPR’s swift exit from both cups last season and the rest it provided the likes of Clint Hill and Shaun Derry was pivotal in our own promotion, and I don’t think many of us would swap May for the world.
For the purists and their cup traditions, hopes rest with Stoke who to their eternal credit have been turning out very strong teams on all fronts this season. They’ve played 21 matches already to QPR’s 12 and the early signs are not good. Last week’s 5-0 reverse at struggling Bolton came just three days after a monster Thursday night trip to Tel Aviv and in September they returned from a win in Kiev only to find themselves posted to Sunderland three days later and lost 4-0. In fact after all seven of their European games this season they’ve subsequently struggled in the next league game – one win, two draws, four defeats. A team many expected to be pushing for the top six is currently twelfth. For shame.
If you’re looking for a niche in the football reporting market then how about setting up an active Stoke City blog? We couldn’t find a single active one during an admittedly half arsed trawl of the internet at the weekend and were instead forced to go cap in hand to The Oatcake message board – like ourselves a former busy Rivals site, now a very busy pro-board – and ask for supporters to help. Two volunteered and we thank Jon Bevington and Richard Forrester for their time.
Stoke seem to have been wildly inconsistent so far this season, how would you assess the start of the campaign?
JB - Well, points-wise we had a good start to the season, but most fans that saw us play realised we didn't look all that strong. The signings we made in the window gave the club a boost, but we really needed a back up winger and a left back, they were the priorities in 99% of fans minds. The last few woeful results have really been a shock to the system, and more importantly, the performance on the pitch by the players has definitely not been that of a "Tony Pulis side". So all in all a mixed start, good results against the top clubs at home, intermixed with some very poor away showings. RF - We had a very good start to the season with a creditable point at home to Chelsea and Manchester United. Wins at home to Liverpool and away at West Brom gave the fans a real feel-good factor. We are also doing very well in Europe however some poor results in the previous weeks in the league have dampened that good start.
Is the European campaign causing the poor league results? Would you rather the club focussed solely on the league and turned out the youth and reserve in the cup as Spurs are doing?
RF - I wouldn’t say that Europe is the sole reason for our recent poor results although it no doubt has been a factor. We’ve been unlucky that every time we travel abroad to play on Thursday we have an away game in the league straight after. The fans are really enjoying being in Europe and has provided a sense of excitement considering how quickly the club has moved forward. Pulis has rotated the squad for European games but we don’t have the strength and depth which Spurs have to play two entirely different squads. League would be the clubs and fans priority but we just want to enjoy the European adventure while it lasts.
JB - We don't think so. Obviously the travelling is a major factor in tiredness for some players, who won't have experienced the European journeys before. Given that each Europa League game (6 in all) has been followed by an away fixture, and taking into account our woeful away record in the Premiership, it's not very surprising to see the results that have come in. I think the vast majority of fans would take a 15th "ish" place finish in the Premiership this season, if we had a good run in the Europa League and FA Cup. The cups are all that fans of teams in our position can hope for really. Some fans would like to see Pulis blood some of our youngsters, but in the past he has been slow to realise / wary of the quality of some of our youth players, and as such doesn't play them very often.
Is the criticism of Stoke’s style of play justified or not?
JB - The golden question. 99% of our fans would tell you a resounding "No!". When we were promoted we did what we could to survive. The Premiership is the pinnacle of English football, Tony Pulis and our Chairman Peter Coates knew that, and spent big to keep us up. The football hasn't been pretty at times, but we are evolving, bringing in better players and developing our football. (Though in recent weeks in the Premiership it has been difficult to see any evolution at all, we have seemed to be going backwards). You have to do what you have to do to pick up points in this league, it might mean taking the game to weaker teams or shutting up shop against the big boys and trying to counter. Kudos to Pulis for developing the "siege mentality" at Stoke, where every criticism of our play used to spur the club on. The blood and thunder games of our first two seasons in the Premiership against the likes of Aston Villa, Arsenal and Man City will live long in the memory of Stoke fans.
RF - I don’t believe it is justified at all. We have been criticised but also praised since day 1 in the Premier League but we weren’t going to play teams off the park so we had to play to our strengths to stay in the league. It has got us stability, an FA Cup final and a run in Europe. However now that many fans believe we are established, they are getting frustrated with the style as they want to see us push forward.
What is your opinion of Tony Pulis? He seems to have done a fantastic job but I know Stoke fans have always been split on him.
RF - Pulis will always have his critics with Stoke fans. Personally I think he has done a magnificent job with the club but has also had the backing of a very good chairman in Peter Coates. If we go on a bad run, which we are now, then a minority of fans will flock the message board calling for him to leave but that definitely shouldn’t be the case. My only criticism of him is that he can often be very stubborn and has his favourites which often frustrate many fans.
JB -Tony Pulis has done unbelievable things for this football club. He's a stubborn old mule sometimes with his team selections, tactics, and seeming naive PR skills, but you cannot take away the fact that he took us from a weary mid table Championship team to the promised land, and kept us there comfortably, taking in an FA Cup final trip to Wembley and trips to Europe along the way. Taking into account the dross I have witnessed over the years (many older fans have seen much worse than I!), these are heady days for us, and the majority of fans are happy to be in the Premiership and competing hard every week.
What are your hopes and ambitions for the rest of the season, and beyond?
JB - Hopes this season, to reach the knockout stages of the Europa League, and to get as far as possible. Have a good FA Cup run, and finish as high as possible in the Premiership. A tough ask. Beyond this season is hard to discern. Our fans are very ambitious, but we have to be realistic. We don't have a 40,000 seater stadium that we fill every week. Our revenue streams are limited. In recent news a Qatari company is looking to invest in Blackburn Rovers, sadly this is the way it is going now. Wealthy foreign investment appears to be the only way to bridge the gap between 7th / 8th in the Premiership, and those top 6 teams competing for Europe. So for the future, we want to continue building the club's infrastructure up, create a successful academy, and work our way up the league.
RF - This is our fourth season in the Premier League now but does that make us established? I don’t believe so. It is a very competitive league and I don’t think there is much difference between 20th and 8th. We have spent a lot of money so I think we should be achieving a safe mid-table finish including a decent run in Europe. I hope we would be looking for a top half finish in a couple of years.
Who’s the star man, the weak link, the unsung hero and the promising up and coming youngster in your squad?
RF - I think our star man has to be the captain Ryan Shawcross. He has been extremely consistent and the defensive line doesn’t work well without him. The weak link would have to be Jonathon Woodgate. He has only joined at the start of the season but his errors have proved costly especially recently. His career has been hampered by injuries and I worry his best days are now behind him. The unsung hero would have to be Jon Walters although he is beginning to deservedly receive praise not just from Stoke fans. He works his socks off for the side and I’m glad he grabbed a goal for Ireland the other night. Finally the fans predict a bright future for Ben Marshall currently on loan at Sheff Wed. Their fans have raved about him since he joined and has been their star performer. At the age of 20 we hope to see him in the first team in the near future.
JB - Star man so far this season, fans would be split between (super) Jon Walters and Ryan Shawcross really, we will go for Jonny Walters. Everyone else has had their bad days, most notably our wingers this season so far. The weak link has been Jonathan Woodgate (and the manager's inability to decide to not play him). But playing other players out of position means we invariably have one or two weak links in our starting XI at the moment. Left back being a major problem up till now. The promising "youth" this season has been the emergence of Ryan Shotton, primarily a right back but being played on the wings sometimes this season to cover injuries. Quick with good feet, he looks strong. We also have winger Ben Marshall out on loan at Sheffield Wednesday, who is tearing League 1 up at the moment. Some fans are crying out for him to be recalled and offer some competition for Pennant and Etherington. We await to see if he can make the step up.
Tony Pulis’ preferred style of play makes him a difficult manager to like, but a quick glance down his CV and the reason his teams play as they do becomes pretty clear. Pulis has managed at Bournemouth, Gillingham, Bristol City, Portsmouth before they were a Premiership side, Stoke, Plymouth and Stoke again. A glittering list of the great and the good it most certainly is not, more an A to Z of the latter half of the haves and have nots.
Pulis has spent his career as a manager working within meagre means, and doing it bloody well. He’s never won a trophy before, last season’s FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City was as close as he’s come, but he’s never, ever been relegated either and given the penchant of all the clubs on that career list for a demotion or three in recent times that’s remarkable.
He was promoted with Gillingham in 1996 but undoubtedly his finest achievement has been promoting Stoke to the top flight in 2008, admittedly with a team heavily reliant on Premiership loan players, and then not only keeping them there but pushing them on into cup finals and European campaigns. Stoke fans were split right down the middle when he was brought back for a second spell in charge by chairman Peter Coates after a pretty desperate spell under Icelandic ownership and John Boskamp’s management – his style will always divide opinion, regardless of the results it achieves.
He’s a man not afraid of a row. He was sacked by Gillingham for gross misconduct after the famous play off final defeat to Manchester City who scored twice in injury time – he took them to court and they settled. He was later sacked by Portsmouth for misconduct as well after only ten months in charge, and upset Bristol City in the meantime by walking out of Ashton Gate to move to Fratton Park. He was sacked by Stoke’s Icelandic owners during his first spell after repeatedly clashing over transfer policy and even during his hugely successful second spell he still found time to stick one on striker James Beattie in the dressing room at Arsenal after a row over whether the players could have extra time off for a Christmas party. Last season he was one of several Premiership managers picked out by Fulham’s Danny Murphy as preparing his squad to play in an irresponsible and reckless manner.
Newport born and bred he played for his hometown club for two years in the 1980s and has been previously linked with the Welsh national job.
One of the surprise hits of the Premier League last season was Stoke forward Jon Walters who finished the campaign with 12 goals to his name after moving from Ipswich in the Championship. Of course had things turned out slightly differently he’d have been playing for QPR who led the chase for his signature until Stoke blew them out of the water with the offer of regular Premiership football.
I say ‘surprise’ hit because I’ve never actually thought Walters was that good: heavy set to the point of being fat, slow to the point of being stationary – nothing out of the ordinary at all. In fact I was delighted when we missed out on his signature last summer and signed Portsmouth’s Tommy Smith instead. I didn’t expect Walters to do much in the top flight, and Stoke have signed a few middle-of-the-road Championship players like him in the past with no success at all – Tom Soares, Michael Tonge, Andrew Davies, Danny Pugh. In Walters they appear to have found a good one, and yet it’s signings like him that make them vulnerable to a team that can see past the long throws and set pieces when plotting a game plan against them.
One of the big problems I had with Walters as a Premiership player was his lack of pace – I just couldn’t see how his chugging style would stand up to the pace of the top flight. Unlike most Premiership managers Tony Pulis isn’t actually that fussed about how quick his players are. He looks for height, physicality and mental strength before he gets the stop watch out and times their sprints. The consequence of this is a giant, uncompromising side with no-nonsense ball (and leg) breakers like Kenwyne Jones, Peter Crouch, Robert Huth, Rory Delap, Ryan Shawcross, Cameron Jerome, Dean Whitehead and others rampaging around the place. The automatic position for teams heading to the Britannia Stadium is one of mild panic as they wonder just how on earth they can cope with a team with this much height and physicality.
Luckily just a few short weeks before our visit here, Newcastle United rode into town and showed exactly how it can be done. Stoke do have some pace in the team, almost exclusively through Jermaine Pennant on one wing and Matthew Etherington on the other – and even they’re pacey rather than genuinely quick. Against Stoke Newcastle dropped left winger Jonas Gutierrez back towards Ryan Taylor so they were almost playing with two left backs. This completely nullified the threat of Pennant who was totally anonymous.
That meant, without a key outlet wide right, Stoke had to go even longer, even earlier than normal. Newcastle responded by playing a ridiculously high defensive line, leaving vast acres of space in behind their back four that a team with somebody like Gabby Agbonlahor, Shane Long or our own Shaun Wright Phillips in attack would have had an absolute field day with. Stoke however are not set up to exploit space in behind, they’re set up to pen defences back deep in their own half and then beat them in the air. When they looked for Pennant he was snuffed out, when they looked long they were either offside or left to watch one ball after another drop into space that none of their strikers were quick enough to exploit. Tony Pulis then exacerbated this problem by removing their only other quick player, Matthew Etherington, and sending on another lumbering striker in Kenwyne Jones instead. With Stoke often using two centre backs at full back Newcastle recognised that the key to beating them is taking Pennant and Etherington out of the equation, leaving the lumbering, hulking spine of the team to try and create something. Alan Pardew take a bow, it was a tactical masterclass and deserved 3-1 win.
Another thing Newcastle pinpointed, and again this is down to a lack of speed in the home ranks, is that all these throw ins and set pieces should be embraced as an opportunity as much as they are feared as a threat. With three players in the six yard box and three more then charging in under long throws and inswinging corners it can be terrifying. But if Rory Delap is playing then it’s actually good news because apart from the throw ins he is a very limited player indeed, certainly nowhere near good enough to play in the centre of a Premiership midfield without his throwing ability. Having drilled the defence on how to defend the set pieces Newcastle then enjoyed great success on the counter attack by flooding their quicker players forwards as soon as the ball was out of their penalty area and racing upfield into threatening positions while the likes of Delap and Huth struggled to get back.
Incidentally watch (and hope the referee is watching too) the amount of late hits Robert Huth puts in - often leading with an outstretched, straight leg with studs showing – on players defending a high ball. He did it four times in an hour against Newcastle, but then he did score nine times for Stoke last season from centre back so he’s not all bad.
They’re not that crash hot in defence either if you go about it the right way. They’d only conceded one home goal all season prior to the Newcastle chastening but the Magpies picked on Mark Wilson, another average Championship player mysteriously promoted above his level in my opinion, and actually scored from two long balls of their own that Stoke failed to deal with. Jonathan Woodgate has not been playing well since a summer move from Spurs and Huth, despite his scoring prowess and performances last season, can’t get in the side regularly.
Walters takes the penalties by the way – three goals and a miss this season, he’s a hammer it down the middle and hope for the best sort of guy in those situations.
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