[4evaabaggie]

Tony Pulis's would rather reach an FA cup final than finish in the top ten every year? Taken from News Now WBA.

So how does he explain our poor performances and early exits from both cup competitions every year?

I am of the opinion that as long as his never been relegated title remains intact he is happy, with limited ambition to attack and win. Not saying sack him because you need to be where the money is in order to try to build a squad to challenge but his quote beggars belief .... come on.

Any opinions good or bad gladly welcomed.

[Baggievicar]

I think he'll say whatever will deflect pressure from the moment to a future point when people may have forgotten what he said. Same with saying "we'll give the youngsters a chance a bit later" or what he says about transfers each year. Next year's FA Cup is a long way off and by then he'll be able to say "Our priority has to be aiming for top ten in the league".
Sorry to be cynical, I really am, but I can't view anything he says in any other light.

[Beefy 1965]

My heads hurting

[Stairs]

What people say they want and what they do are often very different.

I want to say "Go screw yourself", sell up and go travelling to see the wonders of the world". Sounds great doesn't it.

But I have 4 girls, two of which have still in education that need a dad to advise and guide them. So I will doff my cap to my bosses, put in a weekly shift and just dream of far off places.

Mr Pulis is no different. He'd dreams of walking out at Wembley and waving to adoring fans but in fact his DNA and core behaviour is safety first, don't get beaten, build from the back and don't get over excited going forward.

He might take the odd 'normal behaviour' holiday and let us attack once in a while. But it will not complete a cup run or get us accolades for being an attacking force.

We are what we are, the only answer is a very risky change of management - I'm up for it, but are the owners?

[Slick_Footwork]

I think Pulis does want to do well in the cups - he picked a pretty strong side when we were eliminated from the FA Cup at home to Derby.

However, our style doesn't lend itself well to playing against lower league teams.

Generally, if you're a good footballing side, you wipe the flaw with lower league fodder.

We are not a good footballing side...

We're a gritty, ware em down type of side. We frustrate sides who come to play against us by dogged defending and good set plays. When we're asked to play on the front foot against sides who come to frustrate us, we struggle.

Think of our time under Mowbray, we pretty much beat all the lower league side with ease. However, in the Premier League we tried to outplay sides like Liverpool and United and they hammered us. Under Pulis we play backs to the wall stuff against top sides but rarely do we get hammered. In fact, we've picked up some decent results against them.

The cross side of that is, when we play against lower league sides (who are also hugely up for it), we can't do anything.

The answer would be to add more quality to the squad. But there's a few question marks over that happening...

1) Will the owners back Pulis? We can criticise his style of management but IMO Pulis really hasn't been backed so far. We've finished 10th with a bare bone squad consisting of predominantly over 30s and just 2 strikers, one of whom scored less than 10 in the Championship last year and was a freebie...

2) Will Pulis sign the right players if he is backed? IMO Chadli and Phillips were good signings in the summer and played a huge part in our good run of from. It's no surprise that when they have fallen out of favour and been injured that our from has dropped off. However, will TP feel the Chadli 'type' isn't right for the club and sign more headless chickens? This remains to be seen...

IF Pulis is backed and signs more Phillips and Chadlis, then I'd like to think we'll be equipped to beat lower league sides next season. However if he isn't backed or spends the money on more McCleans or McManamans, I think we'll struggle again.

But all in all, I think to make a judgement on Pulis' real thoughts on the cup, we need to see him backed.