(31-12-2015, 17:17)Worldclassalbion Wrote: DDI find this incredible. What the F**k is Pulis doing. Surely you pick your team from watching them train. Why make these players train away from the 1st team FFS!!!!!!
I remember Steve Clarke used to pick Nicolas Anelka presumably on the basis of watching him train, but how many of us even wanted Anelka at the club in the first place? I didn't, based solely on the wages he was on, then vindicated by his subsequent off-field actions.
Sometimes there has to be a balance struck between a player's worth to the team and his behaviour. A player's training isn't just about running between cones and five a side games. There is stuff going on behind the scenes with Berahino, and you only have to read what Darren Fletcher has to say about that to realise that maybe Pulis is getting it right.
(31-12-2015, 19:53)May68 Wrote: But the fact that there are so many outcasts (i.e. 1/3 of the squad) makes me wonder what the common denominator is here, and it looks to me like it is Tony Pulis. Either we have somehow contrived to sign the most unprofessional bunch of players ever put together, or the manager is overly prickly and prone to favouritism.
Or it could be that the manager does what he thinks is best for the team and the dressing room. Would you argue that Alex Ferguson is the best manager we've seen in the past quarter century? He shifted Jaap Stam, Roy Keane and David Beckham from United because for one reason or another they were all causing problems in and out of the team and dressing room. And I don't see anything different that Tony Pulis is doing.