[drewks]

Kicking off on Twitter big time
Just found this on here from a x journo

Let me start my stating that I believe Tony Pulis is the best thing to happen to West Brom since Gary Megson, for reasons I’ve laid out endlessly before, and won’t go into again here. I stand by everything I have said.

Furthermore I still think most of the people who don’t like him never wanted to like him and had no intention of ever giving him a chance. The venom directed at him has been disproportionate and wholly unfair – a mixture of naivety, blind hysteria, and in some cases willful ignorance. I don’t stand with those people, and I never will.

But even I, a disciple of Tony Pulis, am losing faith in his methods.
The Southampton performance was indefensible. To set up to draw against teams of that calibre – teams below you in the league, inferior teams, with the team we have, the team Pulis deserves huge credit for building, is baffling.

The same can be said of the display at Leicester on Monday night, of West Ham at home and Brighton away.

I agree with Tony Pulis when he says it is ‘fine margins’ in the Premier League. It is. But we should have been home and dry at Leicester – another poor team where, like Southampton, the manager is facing the sack.

We were never going to score from open play at St Mary’s because frankly we weren’t trying to. The same can be said of the goalless draw at home to West Ham – another inferior team with a manager under pressure.

I am a huge admirer of Pulis. He was exactly what we needed in 2015 and despite the charges of playing boring, rigid football, I have always urged the naysayers to see the bigger picture.

He inherited a mess, on and off the pitch, and the turnaround has been swift and successful. For every season he has been our manager, we would have got relegated if someone else was in charge. I am convinced of that. He has cleared out the dross and replaced it with the most talented squad I’ve ever seen at the Albion. It is a half-decent striker-short of being very, very good.

He oversaw the most impressive transfer window at West Brom since Gary Megson purchased Butler, Clement, Lyttle, Santos and Taylor and kept us up.

Yet he’s managing it like it’s still rubbish. This squad can play, it has pace, it can pass. They are good footballers, but it’s like Pulis only sees fighters – battling for that precious point, keeping the opposition at bay – without thinking that maybe it’s the opposition that should be worrying about us.

Where was the goal going to come from on Saturday? A set-piece? I’ve never been one of those fans who mock us for scoring lots of goals from corners (a goal is a goal is a goal…) but this team is so much more capable of solely relying on that.

The level of caution in his team selections is reckless. It is failing because it doesn’t make sense.

Chadli is not a winger, neither is Rodriguez. Rondon is not good enough, yet the one thing (the only thing) he has going for him is he can score headers in the box – so play wingers. If you insist on playing Rondon,  you have to play Phillips, or Brunt, or McClean.

Do you really need to play 3 holding midfielders? No. Not when two of them are very good and you have Chadli and Morrison. No one is bringing the ball out. Rondon won’t hold it up, ever, so there’s no point in continuously knocking it up to him. Why buy Rodriguez and play him out of position?

Playing for a point in most games makes sense when all you have going for you is hard work and organisation. But it’s an insult to treat this set of players, the players you bought in, the same as the ones they’ve replaced. What was the point in buying them if we aren’t going to change?

What worried me about last night was this post-match comment: ”Second half we changed it and had a lot more chances.”

No we didn’t. We really didn’t.

Rodriguez had one chance, and he should have done much better (he needs to better, full stop). Chadli had a pop shot from 20 yards which the keeper should save.

But that was it.

I worry when a manager isn’t honest. Pulis has been very honest about our shortcomings in the past. It’s one of the reasons I like him. The shortcomings at the moment though are his, and what worries me most is Pulis means it when he says ‘we created a lot more chances.’ That he actually believes it.

Above all, my biggest fear is Pulis just doesn’t have different gear to go. This is what he does, who he is, and it won’t change, because he doesn’t know how to. I want to be wrong. I really do.

IMHO spot on. Very good post

---

(Hasn't this become a "Tony Pulis" thread now, stairs?)

It'll be interesting to see what (if any) reaction there is from TP regarding the team he picks, and the way they're set up, next. It's a shame that it's Man City.....maybe we should be more interested in the game after that one. Tbh I won't be expecting any change - there's a danger that he'll go even MORE defensive, if that's possible.
Like so many others, I'm sort of mothballing my interest at the moment, hoping that I'll open up the BBC football site soon and see that he's left.