The Head Coach Thread.

[chickenlunch 315]

 

Really?  Negative, boring football, and now the results are starting to reveal how bad we are.  I think most people on here have given Pulis more than a fair chance tbh!

 

I would 100% disagree with this. You people have been waiting to jump on this bandwagon all season. There are guys who were calling for his head when we were in 3rd..! now we're 6th.. hardly a disaster. Just a bad run of form. We're still ahead of teams like Forest, Villa, Stoke, Swansea.

 

We missed out on some crucial preseason signings - Pulis himself even said that the squad isn't good enough for promotion given these failings, and yet has proceeded to succeed in keeping us massively in the promotion race. The club let him down, he told them the players he wanted, they didn't deliver. Simple as that.

 

In my opinion he's worked miracles to get us to the point where we're disappointed with being 6th. He's a victim of his own success if anything. Yes, it's made for bleak viewing, but he's had to work with a squad filled with holding midfielders and strikers who can't score for toffee. The least the deserves is the chance to operate with a squad that he's actually happy with. It's clear that Braithwaite has never wanted to be here, and he's probably the only attacking player likely to be able to change things for us.

 

Basically, Pulis needs a full season to be judged. Anyone saying any different is a bandwagon jumping fool and a sheep..

 

fickle! fickle! fickle!

 

well he is the manager right? He decides who we sign? Noone forced him to buy saville, mcnair, flint and so on....

 

He signed them,while fully expecting also to be signing the wingers that we desperately need.

 

Once again, Braithwaite is the issue here, Gibson was obviously waiting to sell him before fully committing to signing anyone, so when that didn't happen we were left floundering around on the final day trying to sign anyone who'd come but being unwilling to pay the inflated fee's on deadline day.

 

Can we just clarify that Braithwaite hasn't made pulis crap. Pulis has done that all by himself.

 

It's the failure by the club to bring in any of the attacking players Pulis wanted during the summer - which Pulis pointed out from day 1. This the primary reason we've struggled to maintain the top 2 position we held for much of the season. TP was even more pessimistic about our chances at the start of the season, so it's not like he's sitting there stating that this is his perfect squad.

 

The Braithwaite issue has just compounded the problems in recent weeks as he, along with Downing, are pretty much the only players we have capable of linking attack and midfield - he can't be bothered any more, so what options does TP have? Do you really think he wants to be playing Assombalonga on the left wing?!

 

You people are crazy. Are we as a fanbase really that pathetic that we're just going to dump on a manager who is currently in 6th position, after massively exceeding expectations all season and just experiencing the first blip in form.

[LBP 3,035]

 

I would 100% disagree with this. You people have been waiting to jump on this bandwagon all season. There are guys who were calling for his head when we were in 3rd..! now we're 6th.. hardly a disaster. Just a bad run of form. We're still ahead of teams like Forest, Villa, Stoke, Swansea.

 

We missed out on some crucial preseason signings - Pulis himself even said that the squad isn't good enough for promotion given these failings, and yet has proceeded to succeed in keeping us massively in the promotion race. The club let him down, he told them the players he wanted, they didn't deliver. Simple as that.

 

In my opinion he's worked miracles to get us to the point where we're disappointed with being 6th. He's a victim of his own success if anything. Yes, it's made for bleak viewing, but he's had to work with a squad filled with holding midfielders and strikers who can't score for toffee. The least the deserves is the chance to operate with a squad that he's actually happy with. It's clear that Braithwaite has never wanted to be here, and he's probably the only attacking player likely to be able to change things for us.

 

Basically, Pulis needs a full season to be judged. Anyone saying any different is a bandwagon jumping fool and a sheep..

 

fickle! fickle! fickle!

 

well he is the manager right? He decides who we sign? Noone forced him to buy saville, mcnair, flint and so on....

 

He signed them,while fully expecting also to be signing the wingers that we desperately need.

 

Once again, Braithwaite is the issue here, Gibson was obviously waiting to sell him before fully committing to signing anyone, so when that didn't happen we were left floundering around on the final day trying to sign anyone who'd come but being unwilling to pay the inflated fee's on deadline day.

 

Can we just clarify that Braithwaite hasn't made pulis crap. Pulis has done that all by himself.

 

It's the failure by the club to bring in any of the attacking players Pulis wanted during the summer - which Pulis pointed out from day 1. This the primary reason we've struggled to maintain the top 2 position we held for much of the season. TP was even more pessimistic about our chances at the start of the season, so it's not like he's sitting there stating that this is his perfect squad.

 

The Braithwaite issue has just compounded the problems in recent weeks as he, along with Downing, are pretty much the only players we have capable of linking attack and midfield - he can't be bothered any more, so what options does TP have? Do you really think he wants to be playing Assombalonga on the left wing?!

 

You people are crazy. Are we as a fanbase really that pathetic that we're just going to dump on a manager who is currently in 6th position, after massively exceeding expectations all season and just experiencing the first blip in form.

Why's it anyone but the manager's fault we have 2 centre halves who should be giving us 10-15 goals on average yet can't win a header in the opposition half let alone score from a corner.

 

He must obviously want to play Assombalonga left wing if he's got Tavernier who's been one of our best attacking outlets this season and lifts the team every time he comes on on the bench?

 

Let's not even mention the style of play.

 

Every player that was here last season looks an absolute shadow of themselves this season, so I agree if Pulis got his wide men who he wanted in the summer maybe we'd be better off but it's clear the problem now lies deeper than that considering we can no longer defend even against below average sides. Something obviously needs to change and whilst a lot of it is behind the scenes (recruitment, scouting, coaching staff) the easiest right now is get a new manager who can lift the side maybe make a cheapish signing or two in january and try get us play offs for the extra money so we can fully revamp the squad/club in the summer

 

Also there's nothing worse than being called crazy/pathetic/fickle when you all you want is what's best for the team and because we want to enjoy what we pay to watch.

[sanddancer 1,967]

Pulis. How could it not be Pulis when the players we have performed quite well elsewhere. It’s tactics, why is he so negative and repetitive in his style. When Dowing becomes the star or go to player then either you or the club don’t know what they are doing. Or has he lost the players, are they frustrated with formation, style or management. Once again the season has turned into another painful boring plod waiting for the next game or comment because there is little faith or joy watching the team.

[Hull Baggie 0]

I've not been on here for a while. I genuinely feel for you as your Pulis thread is like ours was for a few years before the club finally had the sense to sack the man....and that was the same as Stoke boards before they got rid of him.

It won't get better, it just won't. I was one of a small minority of Albion fans that kept saying he will change , look at Palace, all he needs is time, once he has his own players in we'll see the difference etc etc etc. We never got better, he has one way of playing and it's "do not lose" not "try to win".

Obviously his remit was to keep us in the premier league so you see the point of his style of play, play for a point and be defensively solid try and nick a goal then defend for your life, but it's uninspiring and terrible to watch over a season and alienates a lot of fans.

 

With you it's harder to understand his style of play (assuming that his remit is to get you promoted) as the safety first, play for a point style is unlikely to get a side promoted which is born out by 2 promotions in 26 years of management. The fact he is seen as a fire fighter type of manager should be all clubs need to know, he is not the kind of manager you need for promotion.

[Borodane 6,301]

Monk is a whole different conversation to Pulis... he spent a LOT of money on a team to play 4-3-3 with attacking full backs and inside forwards. It was overly complicated and not really clicking.

 

We had a few bad results so he got spooked, s*** his pants, and reverted to the 4-2-3-1 that served him well at Leeds - except we had no wingers, no no.10, and no Chris Wood so it failed big time.

 

Pulis needs to go for me, but give him the £50m budget Monk had from day 1 and he would have bought the wingers to fit his style and we would be doing okay - I do believe that.

 

Yet he had a whole summer but he brought in 3 central midfielders and not a single winger even though it was clear that Traore was going and he didn't want to keep Marvin Johnson (for obvious reasons). Going all in only on Bolasie was a huge mistake and he looked like a manager without a plan throughout the summer. Maybe some of the players were down to the recruitment team but if Pulis actually had a plan I'm sure they would have tried to fulfill them. Do you really think the recruitment team signed Saville without him saying "YES". If he had said he didn't need him because he had enough midfielders I doubt we would have pushed through the deal at the same time of signing Besic who Pulis clearly wanted all summer. Pulis was clueless thoughout the summer.

 

And if Pulis really wants to play with wingers then why isn't he using Tav more. Instead Britt is on the wing, which just beggars belief. Tav is the only player in with a bit of pace and skill, but he is no experienced Downing or useless lump Hugill.

[Downsouth 6,327]

I've not been on here for a while. I genuinely feel for you as your Pulis thread is like ours was for a few years before the club finally had the sense to sack the man....and that was the same as Stoke boards before they got rid of him.

It won't get better, it just won't. I was one of a small minority of Albion fans that kept saying he will change , look at Palace, all he needs is time, once he has his own players in we'll see the difference etc etc etc. We never got better, he has one way of playing and it's "do not lose" not "try to win".

Obviously his remit was to keep us in the premier league so you see the point of his style of play, play for a point and be defensively solid try and nick a goal then defend for your life, but it's uninspiring and terrible to watch over a season and alienates a lot of fans.

 

With you it's harder to understand his style of play (assuming that his remit is to get you promoted) as the safety first, play for a point style is unlikely to get a side promoted which is born out by 2 promotions in 26 years of management. The fact he is seen as a fire fighter type of manager should be all clubs need to know, he is not the kind of manager you need for promotion.

 

You have pretty much summed things up perfectly, sadly!

 

When he finally left how soon after the event did you notice any change in Albion?

 

The reason of asking is that I get the impression it might take a while to re-identify a team from the "Pulis style"

[Borodane 6,301]

All we cling on to is that his contract is up in the summer and I don't think he is staying if he should last so long. Luckily we are not lumbered with old players on huge contracts - Downing aside. A new manager should have a decent squad to build on.

[RiseAgainst 3,793]

Pulis has a stronger squad than the likes of Mowbray and (early on) Karanka, yet he's not achieving anything like their full potential. It was Pulis who signed players in the summer for positions we were already well stocked in, ignoring positions we'd needed filling for years. And I'm sorry, but playing chicken with the transfer deadline day clock regarding Bolassie and Adomah smacks of amateurism. Get your deals done early or don't expect any sympathy if they collapse on TDD.

 

His tactics are often wrong, his public criticisms of players are Mourinho-esque, and the gap between the lone striker and everyone else is often as large as Karanka at his worst. Pulis has turned consistent goalscorers (Saville, Flint) into players who can miss an empty net from two yards out. And even his supposed "tactic" of scoring from set pieces isn't working any more. The players look bereft of confidence, and which creative wide players would want to join them in the current circumstances? Would you sign for Tony Pulis as an attack-minded player, when our best tactic seems to be "hoof it to the big man"?

 

I hoped Pulis could drag us to the PL in the way Karanka dragged us there with four draws in our final games - ugly but effective, with the odd QPR-style thrashing along the way to lighten the mood. But at the moment, he's lost the players, and lost large sections of the fanbase. I wouldn't consider that fickle - just realistic.

[SouthernSmoggie 4,242]

Monk is a whole different conversation to Pulis... he spent a LOT of money on a team to play 4-3-3 with attacking full backs and inside forwards. It was overly complicated and not really clicking.

 

We had a few bad results so he got spooked, s*** his pants, and reverted to the 4-2-3-1 that served him well at Leeds - except we had no wingers, no no.10, and no Chris Wood so it failed big time.

 

Pulis needs to go for me, but give him the £50m budget Monk had from day 1 and he would have bought the wingers to fit his style and we would be doing okay - I do believe that.

 

Yet he had a whole summer but he brought in 3 central midfielders and not a single winger even though it was clear that Traore was going and he didn't want to keep Marvin Johnson (for obvious reasons). Going all in only on Bolasie was a huge mistake and he looked like a manager without a plan throughout the summer. Maybe some of the players were down to the recruitment team but if Pulis actually had a plan I'm sure they would have tried to fulfill them. Do you really think the recruitment team signed Saville without him saying "YES". If he had said he didn't need him because he had enough midfielders I doubt we would have pushed through the deal at the same time of signing Besic who Pulis clearly wanted all summer. Pulis was clueless thoughout the summer.

 

And if Pulis really wants to play with wingers then why isn't he using Tav more. Instead Britt is on the wing, which just beggars belief. Tav is the only player in with a bit of pace and skill, but he is no experienced Downing or useless lump Hugill.

 

I'm sure he is far from blameless, but the recruitment has been awful for a long time before Pulis came in, so it's hard to know who is more responsible. Unless someone ITK has some behind the scenes knowledge, I guess we can only speculate at who cocked up the search for a winger or who was pushing for Saville. 

 

I fully agree on the Tav point, have been saying that all season. Haven't seen one rational explanation suggested for Britt playing on the wing, and unless I missed it, don't think any journalists have pressed him on it. A true low point...

[Duvel 2,446]

I don't get the optimism on here that we'll get rid of Pulis and then things will start to improve.

 

We've got the same chairman who struggles to make good appointments, the same recruitment team who's record has been poor and the same group of players.

 

If I thought the club would get things right after Pulis I'd have some optimism, unfortunately it'll probably be Woodgate and a couple more years of decline.

[SouthernSmoggie 4,242]

I don't get the optimism on here that we'll get rid of Pulis and then things will start to improve.

 

We've got the same chairman who struggles to make good appointments, the same recruitment team who's record has been poor and the same group of players.

 

If I thought the club would get things right after Pulis I'd have some optimism, unfortunately it'll probably be Woodgate and a couple more years of decline.

 

Probably. But they occasionally get it right, like with Karanka.

[Borodane 6,301]

I don't get the optimism on here that we'll get rid of Pulis and then things will start to improve.

 

We've got the same chairman who struggles to make good appointments, the same recruitment team who's record has been poor and the same group of players.

 

If I thought the club would get things right after Pulis I'd have some optimism, unfortunately it'll probably be Woodgate and a couple more years of decline.

 

I think that the optimism stems from the fact that it can't get much worse in terms of style and gulf between the club and fans.

[Hull Baggie 0]

I've not been on here for a while. I genuinely feel for you as your Pulis thread is like ours was for a few years before the club finally had the sense to sack the man....and that was the same as Stoke boards before they got rid of him.

It won't get better, it just won't. I was one of a small minority of Albion fans that kept saying he will change , look at Palace, all he needs is time, once he has his own players in we'll see the difference etc etc etc. We never got better, he has one way of playing and it's "do not lose" not "try to win".

Obviously his remit was to keep us in the premier league so you see the point of his style of play, play for a point and be defensively solid try and nick a goal then defend for your life, but it's uninspiring and terrible to watch over a season and alienates a lot of fans.

 

With you it's harder to understand his style of play (assuming that his remit is to get you promoted) as the safety first, play for a point style is unlikely to get a side promoted which is born out by 2 promotions in 26 years of management. The fact he is seen as a fire fighter type of manager should be all clubs need to know, he is not the kind of manager you need for promotion.

 

You have pretty much summed things up perfectly, sadly!

 

When he finally left how soon after the event did you notice any change in Albion?

 

The reason of asking is that I get the impression it might take a while to re-identify a team from the "Pulis style"

 

Well we replaced Pulis with the even more dreadful Alan Pardew, the football did improve from an entertainment point of view although results were awful. Under Darren Moore we had the defensive discipline of a Pulis side with the more attacking intent of Pardew and beat Man Utd, Spurs and Newcastle as well as drawing with Liverpool (came back from 2-0 down). Obviously the mess we had been left in by Pulis and Pardew was too much and we got relegated. 

This season we have been much more attack minded and Moore tried a 3-5-2 formation which saw us score a shed load of goals we also conceded a lot too, mainly because none of Dawson, Hegazi or Bartley can play out from the back and the midfield often got overrun. The football is much more exciting and entertaining to watch and at the end of the day that's what I pay my money for...to be entertained. If it becomes just about results why bother going, why not just watch final score on a Saturday tea time?

 

I think we have managed to remove the stigma of Pulisball quite quickly (thankfully) put it this way we don't get opposition fans singing "Your football is ****"anymore!

[Jamie-H 1,322]

Would love to go through the squads Pulis has had season by season in his career and work out the transfer value at the time of them if you include our loan options the squad he has with us is pushing 100 million pound the idea that him being 6th a point better than Monk is anything other than abject failure is just not aligned with what we are as a club. We tightened the belt for years because the chairman wanted to stay we put in place a very smart policy under Mowbray of loaning young players from PL clubs like Chelsea that policy continued under Karanka until we lost at Wembley the Chairman then says let's go for it now that summer we spent 15 million and rounded it off with a Rhodes purchase that January so our squad at the time of promotion was worth maybe 37ish million pounds total in transfer fees fast forward 2 years our squads worth over 90 million we have Tony Pulis in charge with the biggest contract ever given in club history and yet somehow we aren't supposed to expect better from him it is absolute insanity that his failures get excused away this is without doubt the biggest failure of his managerial career he's career low on set pieces on track for 48 GS which is a tiny amount more than the goals he'd score with West Brom in the Premier League none of it is good enough.

 

Every week we see Downing wheeled out at 34 on the wing and no one questions why in a 90 million pound squad we're wheeling him out, every week we see Saville/Britt/McNair/Braithwaite on the bench players whose talent and price tag would assure them a starting place in any other time Boro have been in this league especially no one really questions it we put it down to Pulis knowing best but the problem is 2 of them are his signings for 14 million pounds combined and Saville he immediately *cked by playing him in the deeper Howson/Clayton role where he was trying to be Busquets and looked absolutely awful every time he's not near the opposition box. Fletcher played on the wing under Monk looked like a non league player out there so Pulis thinks because some fans are noticing we haven't seen Fletcher in 3 months let me try him on a wing there is no master plan, there is no coherent process the past 3 weeks is a manager in panic mode throwing different combinations of feces at the wall hoping some of it sticks and this is in December do we think it improves from here?

 

Like I said maybe I'm crazy but it seems to me Pulis should not be getting anyone's sympathy he's put himself in this mess in the best case for him you throw Gibson in this cake mix for the blame cake we're going to inevitably bake when the last gasp of 'maybe we will win the playoffs' is exhaled and all we're left with is Pulis walking away leaving us with an 80 million pound squad, I'll be generous and say if Pulis goes we won't be buying Hugill and Besic, and probably spend all next summer chasing wingers but I just really want to put in context the fact that the Gazette/people are expressing sympathy for Pulis with the 90+ million squad he has in the championship is baths*t crazy.

[J.T. 640]

I absolutely hate the fact that a little part of me wouldn’t care if we lost against Reading this weekend in the hope that it edges Pulis closer to the sack.

 

We must sack him before January! The worst possible scenario for the club would be to give Pulis a load of money to spend on his “type” of players, only for things to not improve at all, he leaves in the summer and we are left with a load of deadwood that he is brought in, who don’t match our new managers style of play and can’t get rid of.