 Thursday, 3rd May 2012 23:17 by Clive Whittingham Stoke seem to have the flip flops and sunnies on already with just one win from their last ten games and a lower midtable finish beckoning. A big summer awaits manager Tony Pulis. OverviewWith only one narrow win against the division’s whipping boys Wolves in their last ten outings it’s clear that Stoke are a club that has long since put the cue back on the rack for this season. No doubt they’ll pick it back up for a quick 147 this Sunday before replacing it ahead of their final match of the campaign with Bolton but it certainly seems as if summer holidays are troubling their minds more than football at the moment. It’s a season that promised much, delivered little, and looks like finishing with Stoke just outside the group of five that has contested the relegation battle this term – largely overlooked because of Alex McLeish’s desperate attempts to get Villa embroiled in the fun and games at the bottom but still not in a positive position and apparently drifting through the final third of the season. There have been positives, and comfortably staying in the division considering how long it took them to return to it is an achievement in itself of course. None of the big five have won at Stoke this season: Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham, Chelsea and Man Utd all drew at the Britannia Stadium. But Stoke seem to be at something of a cross roads this summer and potentially at risk of becoming one of those sides embroiled in trouble next season. They’re an easy side and club to dislike. Against QPR earlier this season they completed just 117 passes in 96 minutes of football, not much more than one pass a minute, and often watching them play can be like watching applied maths – get the ball in this area of the field for a certain percentage of the game and positive results will follow. Their intimidation of more gifted players and referees leaves a bad taste in the mouth and their rough house tactics regularly cross the line into gratuitous, dangerous violence. Robert Huth seems to have a hall pass to do as he pleases and Ryan Shawcross isn’t far behind him. The fans, showing good humour it must be said, sing rugby anthem “Swing Lo Sweet Chariot” at their detractors but their busy Oatcake message board betrays their true feelings on what they call “Pulis-ball.” Their unpleasantness keeps them in the league, but is it coming at the expense of just about everything else? QPR fans have their own reasons for disliking the Potters of course. Memories of Rangers being fined and Stoke let off scott free for an incident where two supporters ran onto the field at the end of the game and attacked Simon Royce as he collected his kit bag from the back of the goal are still reasonably fresh, as is the treatment the away fans got outside the ground after that match, and one the season before where Gerry Taggert was sent off for an incident with Marc Bircham. I’ve little time for the club, but a big part of me has wanted them to succeed over the past two seasons. It still irks me whenever I see a team crashing out of cup competitions and Europe deliberately because of some perceived threat to their league form. I mean Stoke are never going to qualify for the Champions League, and they’re not very likely to be relegated, so why surrender in cup competitions for the sake of finishing eighth rather than twelfth? Why not play for trophies and medals? For 18 months to the middle of this season that’s exactly what they did, reaching the FA Cup final last season and embarking on a lengthy Europa League run this term. Sadly that European adventure took them to far flung places such as Kiev and Tel Aviv on Thursday nights after which they did things like lose to Bolton 5-0 and Sunderland 4-0. When they pulled Valencia in the knockout stages Pulis finally relented and trod the surrender path so many managers choose this season – a reserve team gave its best in a 1-0 defeat and as they subsequently won two consecutive league games without conceding a goal (without which they’d only be four points ahead of QPR) I’m sure Pulis will say it was justified. But, like I say, they never looked like being relegated this season and they’ve only won one of ten games since so what was the point? I think it’s a shame that one of the few teams that still played to win in every cup game has gone away from that this season, even if it did mean willing Stoke on once or twice. There has also, on occasions, been a sense that Stoke have been found out by the Premiership at last. QPR and Newcastle did a real number on them earlier in the season which I’ll discuss shortly in the Scout Report. Much thinking and forward planning is required this summer. Are they sticking to their long ball guns? Are they still a cup team? An interesting summer when they could be one of the busier clubs in the transfer window awaits. ManagerTony 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. Scout ReportWell there's good news and bad news here. The good news is there's a cheat sheet for playing Stoke City , written by Alan Pardew and copied to wonderful effect by QPR at the Britannia Stadium before Christmas. The bad news is Rangers are now set up in a completely different way which will not suit a game against this sort of opposition one bit. First let's return to that glorious moment in October when goals from Luke Young and two from Heidar Helguson sealed a 3-2 victory for the R's against Tony Pulis' side – our third away win in six road trips at the time. Of course Rangers have taken just two points from 12 away matches since then which is a big part of the reason they're seemingly about to be relegated. On that day, and two weeks previously when Newcastle won 3-1 at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke were well and truly found out. The first job both Alan Pardew and Neil Warnock did was taking out the two players Stoke have who can actually play the game a bit: Matthew Etherington and Jermain Pennant. Rangers played Clint Hill and Armand Traore down the left, with Luke Young supported by the work rate of Jamie Mackie down the right. Both pairs attacked well, forcing Stoke to drop deep on the flanks, and then doubled up when Stoke had possession reducing the impact of their wide men to a negligible level. That turns Stoke into an exclusively long ball outfit, rather than just mainly a long ball outfit. The trick then is to hold a high line in defence because although there is danger, ability and physical presence among a collection of strikers that includes Peter Crouch, Kenwynne Jones, Ricardo Fuller and Jon Walters one thing there isn't a lot of is pace. Having got nowhere in wide areas against QPR Stoke resorted to pumping the ball long only to find the Rangers defence pressed up so much that the punts fluttered away into the acres of grass behind the centre backs and their centre forwards weren't quick enough to catch them. It was a tactical master class from Warnock, and previously Pardew who used Jonas Guttierez as a second left back to great effect, which rather pours scorn on Joey Barton's assertion that our previous manager never had a plan for games. But now, problems. QPR, at home at least, have impressed and won four straight matches by playing a deep lying 4-3-3 set up designed to absorb possession and pressure and then break at speed when they do get the ball. The problem is, Stoke don't do possession even when they're playing well. Against us in the corresponding fixture at the Britannia they infamously completed 117 passes in 96 minutes of football – not much more than one successful pass in each minute of the match. Just think about that stat for a second, it's an incredible one. If QPR sit deep and try to absorb pressure here they're going to find themselves entrenched on the edge of their own penalty area, or possibly even deeper, attempting to field a succession of high balls, long throws and set pieces. Such a plan would be like trying to beat Chelsea at racism i.e. foolhardy and doomed to failure. QPR will have to adopt another game plan entirely for this match in my opinion and that doesn't bode well, because as we've seen from our eight match win-lose-win-lose home v away run of results recently picking a horse for a course is not one of Mark Hughes' strength at the moment. We're currently taking a system that works at home and applying it to every game we play, despite increasingly dramatic evidence that it doesn't work in away matches. It won't work here and I worry for Rangers if they try and force it to. 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