Mark Hughes makes his first return to Loftus Road this Saturday after guiding Stoke to their highest ever Premier League finish last season. But, typically, his side have started the new season slowly.
And in all likelihood your reaction to that news is probably ‘good’. After all, we all know all about Stoke City, and the football they play, and how awful they are to watch. Stoke the club that only got into this division in the first place through heavy manipulation of a wide open loan market, and then proceeded to stay here by making use of their windswept, hill-top home to physically bully and intimidate more gifted teams out of games.
Arsene Wenger, a student of the game, a man credited with revolutionising football in this country, would take his beautifully crafted, skilful, gifted Arsenal team to the Britannia Stadium every year and be treated with a chronic lack of respect — his players kicked from pillar to post, and on occasions horrendously injured, as Stoke plundered points from them through blood, sweat, tears and several assets other than skill and ability. Tony Pulis, dressed like the council estate pensioner who ventures out once a day to pick up a paper from the newsagent and moan about the amount of "Pakis" moving into the area, making his touchline presence felt by screaming "Go on Jon” at Jonathan Walters every five minutes. Jon Walters a player who isn’t particularly quick, or good in attack, or adept at defending, with a suspect first touch, and a lousy penalty taking record, who nevertheless started every single game every single week. Stoke were so horrible even their own fans sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” at them, mocking their kick-and-rush style of play.
When Stoke last turned up at Loftus Road, to play an already relegated QPR team that had won only four times all season, they were one of the few teams in the division carrying worse numbers than the Super Hoops. Only Stoke have scored fewer goals than QPR that season to that point — 28 compared to Rangers’ 29 — and Tony Pulis’ side also had a worse away record having won just once all season. In fact, going back into the previous campaign Stoke had won just one of their last 25 road matches prior to their 2-0 success in W12. They had won just one of their previous 14 in the league and two of the last 22 in all competitions. They arrived on a run of one draw and six defeats from their previous seven matches and had won just one of the last seven visits to Loftus Road. They have scored just nine goals in 16 away matches that year — West Ham were next worst with ten but everybody else had 13 or more and even that pathetic QPR team had 17.
But legendary former QPR player and manager Gerry Francis summed up his five years coaching at Stoke succinctly this week, in an excellent 45 minute interview with the Open All R’s Podcast, as "trying to keep the worst team, technically, in the Premier League, in the Premier League.”
Last season, having left Stoke in the summer of 2013, Tony Pulis pitched up at a Crystal Palace club in disarray, with a disastrous summer transfer window setting them up for a run of nine defeats from the first ten games of the season to all but condemn them to relegation. With minimal changes in personnel, Pulis crafted 12 wins from the remaining 27 league games to lift the Eagles into midtable. Not only that, but Palace looked reasonably decent doing it — attacking teams away from home with a pacy threat in wide areas from the likes of Jason Puncheon and Yannick Bolasie, winning at Everton and at home to Chelsea and Liverpool. None of the kick and rush stuff.
Suddenly the public perception of Tony Pulis changed. This was a man who knew immediately how to get the best from what he had. At Stoke, that meant direct, long ball football. At Palace it meant quick, physical counter attacks at high speed in wide areas. At his next club, who knows, but having been everybody’s worst nightmare as their next manager he’s suddenly linked with every job that comes up. It wasn’t by accident that Stoke got up and stayed up, and Pulis’ ongoing record of never being relegated as a manager is also more by design than fluke.
And hey, if Arsenal turn up at Stoke every year and lose having been physically bullied out of the game, isn’t it Arsene Wenger’s stubbornness and failure to adapt to an opponent despite boasting ten times the playing budget which should be criticised, rather than Tony Pulis’ chosen method of keeping Stoke City in the top flight with plenty to spare each season?
Given how Pulis did at Palace, the pressure was really on Stoke to perform without him. You couldn’t escape the feeling that his time at the Britannia had run its course as the Potters limped through to the end of 2012/13 — with a 2-0 win at QPR to boost the figures naturally — but there was a hefty whiff of the Charltons about his departure. Stoke fans, like The Valley regulars a few years before with Alan Curbishley, had started to take the time to ring the radio phone ins and trot out the time-honoured catch-all supporter cliché that Pulis had "taken us as far as he can” — which quite often actually means "has taken us as far as anybody is ever likely to.” Charlton have never, ever come close to that midtable mediocrity they were assured during Curbishley’s time there since he left and there was a clear danger the same would happen to Stoke. Beware that lush patch of green on the other side of the fence.
Particularly when the herd grazing it looks suspiciously like Mark Hughes, Kia Joorabchian, Mark Bowen, Mike Rigg and all the wacky gang.
Pulis, much mocked, had actually built Stoke into a Premier League club on and off the field. The academy had grown to top flight standard from a standing start, and a training ground previously boasting portacabins as changing facilities was now a state of the art £28m complex. For Mark Hughes to be able to walk into a settled, established Premier League club with those kind of facilities after the job he’d done at QPR only served to rile the Rangers faithful who’d suffered his chronic, arrogant mismanagement of an admittedly difficult situation at Loftus Road still further. Rangers, meanwhile, had to pick up the pieces of the mess he left behind in the division below.
Hughes had arrived at Loftus Road initially having done a good job with Wales and Blackburn, a mediocre one with Manchester City amidst boardroom upheaval, and a bizarre year at Fulham where he looked like he might get them relegated at one point only to eventually lift them to a highest ever Premier League finish. He resigned at Craven Cottage citing a lack of ambition. Most believed he was set for Aston Villa but, unbelievably, he felt he was ready for Chelsea. In the end, after six months out of work, he pitched up at QPR, replacing Neil Warnock who’d been doing a very decent job and was unfairly dismissed. As it turns out, "ambition” means being allowed to spunk obscene amounts of money the club can scarcely afford on big name players who have little interest in playing for it.
It should probably be pointed out that while Hughes will — justifiably — get roundly abused on Saturday for the shambolic job he did at Loftus Road, and the arrogance he displayed during his time at the club, with his "meticulous preparation” and constant blathering about "Premier League football matches”, a large portion of the blame for that disaster must be placed with Tony Fernandes. It was he who allowed Hughes’ omnipresent minister without portfolio Kia Joorabchian to get in his ear in the first place, replacing Neil Warnock way before he’d past his sell by date in W12, and then allowing the reckless hiring of countless ageing professionals, not to mention scores of Hughes’ mates in various backroom jobs. Hughes even appointed his own technical director, Mike Rigg — arse about face if ever there was a case.
At Stoke, he led them to a highest ever Premier League finish of ninth last season. The fans enjoyed the improved standard of football, and there were wins against Chelsea, Man Utd and — as usual — Arsenal for them to enjoy. The Stoke fans we spoke to this week didn’t have a bad word to say about Hughes or the job he’s doing.
But there are one or two warning signs at the start of the new campaign. Stoke recorded an eye-catching 1-0 victory at reigning champions Manchester City early on — but it was a backs-to-the-wall effort secured with just 30% of possession and thanks to a goalkeeping error by Joe Hart. More concerningly, they’ve been beaten at home by pre-season relegation favourites Aston Villa and Leicester without scoring, and drew at Hull despite the hosts playing for 75 minutes with ten men. One of our Stoke contributors this week saying the way Hughes coaches means his teams "always start slowly” rang bells.
The Potters arguably made the best pound-for-pound signing of the summer, prising Barcelona youth product Bojan to Staffordshire. He scored without a problem in pre-season and seemed like a handy Dream Team pick but has struggled so far. The latest Vincent Kompany, Chris Samba, Moussa Dembele success story fr Hughes to chalk up on his CV? Or another too-good-to-be-true, expensive, foreign disaster that he specialised in at QPR? Julio Cesar, Eesteban Granero, Stephane Mbia, Ji-Sung Park, Jose Bosingwa etc.
Stoke look well set, but Hughes knows only too well how poor starts can manifest themselves nd become self-fulfilling things. He’ll be desperate for a win at QPR this Saturday for more reasons than one.
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