[Salopbaggie]

I totally agree with the calls to stop the backbiting of each other!!! We are all Baggies and surprisingly considering we are using social media, a lot of us with several decades of supporting our beloved team behind us. I know for many of us it is well over 40 years.  

Forums are supposed to be a place where we can come together discuss and debate with each other about OUR team, that does not mean we all have to sit here typing "great post" all of the time, of course we are going to disagree otherwise the forum would be as boring as a Tony Pullis team playing football (sorry could not resist that one).  What is wrong is that some people are not respecting the views and opinions of others.  Yes lets argue till the cows come home but lets do it with respect and listen to others and respect their opinions rather than just dismiss them out of hand because they are not in line with our own

There seems to be a perception that being a fan of TP is either 100% or 0%, there is a lot of ground in between, that I suspect most people are in.  

I doubt many actually dislike Pullis, it is his negative football they dislike and as stated above I did not see anyone clambering to defend him when he was at Stoke using the same methods and tactics.  I was in the 50/50 camp until I had given him enough of a chance to see if it was the Stoke or the Crystal Palace Pullis we had appointed, the answer now is clearly the former.

His constant insistence of playing players out of position, buying substandard players, often to fill positions that could have waited until essential positions had been filled.  I mean is there any other team in the premiership or any other league for that matter that does not have even one dedicated full back in the squad, well one that can actually get in the team anyway.

It would be stupid to suggest anything other than a team solid at the back will ever achieve anything, but TP seems to think you can ignore everything in front of the back 4 until you have the back 4 right.  It should also be obvious that if you are building a road bridge on 4 pillars and the two pillars in the middle are made of brick where the outside pillars are made of cardboard it is going to end in tears, you use the necessary material to make it solid and constantly trying to use CB's and midfield players to play at full back is not building the best bridge possible and yes it may stand up to a mini driving over it but when an articulated lorry runs over it, it is going to collapse.

TP I think can be given credit for his man management style which is about the only thing I do not have any criticism of him for but that opinion is only based on what I have read so how accurate that belief is I do not really know.

As for some his team selections, right back to the day he arrived, have been to put it politely, surprising, sometimes appearing to be based on pulling a name out of a hat.

All that said I am not calling for his head and while he is our coach I will support him, though I am definitely not going to sing his praises until that his warranted.

GROUP HUG

[BaggieMan]

Silver, you have always been a top contributor to this and other forums and you would be greatly missed if you decided to leave.

What we must always remember and respect is that any poster on here is entitled to voice his/her opinion on how they feel irrespective of whether we agree with them and we must try to exclude snide personally directed comments that we are seeing of late that we rarely saw before with the exception of Firey Moose.

There is a common factor in all this - a certain Anthony Richard Pulis and the division we are seeing now is exactly identical to that which Stoke City fans experienced.

[May68]

Am I missing something? Where are the personal attacks and backbiting? The debate between Tibby and TheBaggieMan was pretty polite and they both tried to answer each other's arguments point by point, which is the way it should be.
I completely agree with Salop that forums would be boring if everyone agreed. I guess that makes my previous sentence a boring thing to say.

Back to the main topic: Like many here I can see a run-in between JP and TP just around the corner. I don't think TP's transfer dealings will have particularly impressed (which was totally predictable given his buying record at Stoke), and I think TP will try to claim that he hasn't finished making up his squad, despite having two transfer windows where he's spent a fortune.

[Tibby Baggie]

Am I missing something? Where are the personal attacks and backbiting? The debate between Tibby and TheBaggieMan was pretty polite and they both tried to answer each other's arguments point by point, which is the way it should be.
I completely agree with Salop that forums would be boring if everyone agreed. I guess that makes my previous sentence a boring thing to say.

Back to the main topic: Like many here I can see a run-in between JP and TP just around the corner.  I don't think TP's transfer dealings will have particularly impressed (which was totally predictable given his buying record at Stoke), and I think TP will try to claim that he hasn't finished making up his squad, despite having two transfer windows where he's spent a fortune.

You've pretty much put into words what I was thinking mate. More debate like that is what forums thrive on.

As far as transfer dealings go I think the likes of Fletcher and Evans are excellent signings. Gnabry is a player I'd like to see more of before making my mind up, as what I saw of him against Port Vale was not a good performance. Same goes for Rondon and Lambert. 

I have to agree with Silver about the overly negative views currently and had to cringe when reading how Rondon is apparently no better than Anichebe. I will accept people will use forums to vent frustration, but what I won't accept and will happily debate against are knee jerk emotional opinions. 

[drewks]

Am I missing something? Where are the personal attacks and backbiting? The debate between Tibby and TheBaggieMan was pretty polite and they both tried to answer each other's arguments point by point, which is the way it should be.
I completely agree with Salop that forums would be boring if everyone agreed. I guess that makes my previous sentence a boring thing to say.

Back to the main topic: Like many here I can see a run-in between JP and TP just around the corner.  I don't think TP's transfer dealings will have particularly impressed (which was totally predictable given his buying record at Stoke), and I think TP will try to claim that he hasn't finished making up his squad, despite having two transfer windows where he's spent a fortune.

You've pretty much put into words what I was thinking mate. More debate like that is what forums thrive on.

As far as transfer dealings go I think the likes of Fletcher and Evans are excellent signings. Gnabry is a player I'd like to see more of before making my mind up, as what I saw of him against Port Vale was not a good performance. Same goes for Rondon and Lambert. 

I have to agree with Silver about the overly negative views currently and had to cringe when reading how Rondon is apparently no better than Anichebe. I will accept people will use forums to vent frustration, but what I won't accept and will happily debate against are knee jerk emotional opinions. 

...absolutely. What aggrevates me no end is when 'fans' boo players in a game. To me, the only time this is even remotely acceptable is when that player OBVIOUSLY is slacking and not trying. To have a go at people like Brunt and Gardner, IMO, is totally wrong - they may not be the most gifted players in the world but at least they give 100%  

[Dingle-Dingle]

Rondon is obviously better than Bisquitman. I haven`t seen Rondon limp yet. DD

[RainbowTurnedEastStand]

It frustrates the hell out of me when fans say we havnt played good football since the Tony Brown/Cyrille Regis days
so have to accept the dross Pulis is serving up at the moment, its like everyone has forgotten we finished 8th in the
Premier League under Steve Clarke playing some decent stuff.
Most of this summers signings have been absolute crap and that Rondon looks like a reincarnation of Marc Antoine Fortune who we let go for nothing.

[Slick_Footwork]

Tony Pulis is a manager with both strengths and flaws.

He is brilliant at defensive organisation and getting the best out of poor players.

When he's given a bit of money to spend, he's very hit and miss.

I think he was the perfect appointment to keep us up when Irvine left because our squad was pretty awful and our main priority had to be staying up. Frankly, with the new TV Deal, dropping out of the Prem simply wasn't an option and as a fan, neither was watching the likes of MK Dons etc. Tony inherited a team that couldn't buy a win at home against anyone and guided us to beat Southampton, Swansea, Chelsea and put in our best performance of the season in the 4-0 win against West Ham in the cup. A pretty much identical West Ham team that beat us at our place in the league under Irvine's regime. Darren Fletcher was signed and provided some much needed energy in the middle of the park and was the driving force behind us actually managing to attack at home. In my opinion, finishing 14th with that side was a huge success.

However, this season, we seem to be pretty much at the same level despite spending a bucket load of cash. That exposes Tony's main flaw - when given money, he's a bit of a kid in a sweet shop. I also feel he's a bit deluded about our spending power - his interviews suggest that he expected 3-4 more players to come in. Despite that, he needs to be savvy enough to realise that we're not big enough to be spending £5m, £8m and the like on 'squad players'.

I personally don't think we'll go down with Pulis in charge and even when we lose, we do seem to show a decent amount of commitment. However, there's no denying that we're never going to play sexy football regardless of how much cash he spends (The football was horrendous under Irvine too). Personally, as a purist, I'd have liked to see us bring Pulis in short term and then transition to a more 'footballing' manager like Laudrup or Flores in the summer. But with huge money coming from TV now, I think Peace has taken what he feels is the 'safest' option to just keep us in the league by keeping Pulis long term.

Hopefully that transition happens at some point in the future, because we don't want to watch this football forever. But we shouldn't lose sight of the position we were in when Pulis joined and the job he was pulled in for. Yes, there's a lot to be critical of this season, but he did an effective job last year.

[Tibby Baggie]

Tony Pulis is a manager with both strengths and flaws.

He is brilliant at defensive organisation and getting the best out of poor players.

When he's given a bit of money to spend, he's very hit and miss.

I think he was the perfect appointment to keep us up when Irvine left because our squad was pretty awful and our main priority had to be staying up. Frankly, with the new TV Deal, dropping out of the Prem simply wasn't an option and as a fan, neither was watching the likes of MK Dons etc. Tony inherited a team that couldn't buy a win at home against anyone and guided us to beat Southampton, Swansea, Chelsea and put in our best performance of the season in the 4-0 win against West Ham in the cup. A pretty much identical West Ham team that beat us at our place in the league under Irvine's regime. Darren Fletcher was signed and provided some much needed energy in the middle of the park and was the driving force behind us actually managing to attack at home. In my opinion, finishing 14th with that side was a huge success.

However, this season, we seem to be pretty much at the same level despite spending a bucket load of cash. That exposes Tony's main flaw - when given money, he's a bit of a kid in a sweet shop. I also feel he's a bit deluded about our spending power - his interviews suggest that he expected 3-4 more players to come in. Despite that, he needs to be savvy enough to realise that we're not big enough to be spending £5m, £8m and the like on 'squad players'.

I personally don't think we'll go down with Pulis in charge and even when we lose, we do seem to show a decent amount of commitment. However, there's no denying that we're never going to play sexy football regardless of how much cash he spends (The football was horrendous under Irvine too). Personally, as a purist, I'd have liked to see us bring Pulis in short term and then transition to a more 'footballing' manager like Laudrup or Flores in the summer. But with huge money coming from TV now, I think Peace has taken what he feels is the 'safest' option to just keep us in the league by keeping Pulis long term.

Hopefully that transition happens at some point in the future, because we don't want to watch this football forever. But we shouldn't lose sight of the position we were in when Pulis joined and the job he was pulled in for. Yes, there's a lot to be critical of this season, but he did an effective job last year.

Very good post Slick. Have bolded the parts that stood out when I read it.

Transfers-wise I still think we're slowly heading in the right direction. Lest we forget some of the brilliant signings made under previous regimes such as Nicolas Anelka, Victor Anichebe (the man made of Viscount biscuits, so I'm told) Markus Rosenberg, Yassine El Ghanassy, Georgios Samaras.

---

It frustrates the hell out of me when fans say we havnt played good football since the Tony Brown/Cyrille Regis days
so have to accept the dross Pulis is serving up at the moment, its like everyone has forgotten we finished 8th in the
Premier League under Steve Clarke playing some decent stuff.
Most of this summers signings have been absolute crap and that Rondon looks like a reincarnation of Marc Antoine Fortune who we let go for nothing.

I don't think anyone has said we have to accept the quality of the football we're playing, from what I've read on this forum at least.

12/13 was a great season yet I don't think our football was much more than kick and rush to be honest, with Long being our main focal point with long balls (no pun intended) which he'd then chase down and attempt to either cross into the box or recycle the ball back into midfield.

Saying most of this season signings are absolute crap is hyperbole at it's best. We're 7 games into a season and it's very early for that kind of talk...

[Beefy 1965]

Interesting perspective from a Stoke City supporter !!!

Quote from: Dreamkiller on Today at 02:54:57 PM
Where to start with all this.

First of all, I'm a Stoke fan and I have to say the comments on this thread from supporters who are having the joy of football strangled out of them by the Pulis brand of 'football' are depressingly familiar.

He'll talk about needing more quality while chucking millions down the drain on centre halves to play at full back and forwards who'll need binoculars to find the nearest midfielder to support him. The midfield will just become part of the 'back eight as he lovingly liked to refer to it.

The list of crimes against football are endless, and to be honest, I can't be arsed to list them because by the looks of it, you've pretty much got him nailed anyway.

The bad news is that after a couple of poor results, he'll really baton down the hatches and grind out a few 0-0 results to keep you on target for the golden ticket 40 points he always craves. And that really will be the height of your ambitions for the time he's at your club. What fun and entertainment you'll have...NOT!

For your sakes, I hope he doesn't darken your doorstep for too long. Our club gained itself a reputation for ugliness that it will take years to get rid of. But don't think he'll be put off by supporter unrest. He really has the thickest skin in football. He'll go when your owners decide enough is enough.

You guys will know whether your owners are happy to put up with utter dirge week after week to stay in the Premier League, or whether they care enough about the supporters to spare them further punishment by getting rid at the end of the season.

By then, like at Stoke, large numbers of you will probably be considering giving up on the club you've loved all your lives. It really does get that bad. You have my sympathy.

Best wishes,

DK