The Head Coach Thread.

[Changing Times 12,347]

Off Twitter

“@MichaelJBaum Leeds and Norwich just scored more combined goals in stoppage time in their games TODAY than we have in our last FULL 6 games (15 or so minutes vs 550+ minutes) @boroform”

 

He needs to go.

 

Bloody hell, that's a stat  :disappointed:

[ballyclover 213]

Did we give monk enough time? Doing great at Brum. 2 points of us.

[ladyspite 385]

Did we give monk enough time? Doing great at Brum. 2 points of us.

 

He dident give himself enough time

 

He changed a system he used all pre season that looked promisng and a system he bought players for. He changed after a narrow 1-0 loss away to Wolves.....

[LinoJo3 3,191]

Did we give monk enough time? Doing great at Brum. 2 points of us.

 

We just messed up the recruitment, that much is clear now.

[TAPOUT 361]

Did we give monk enough time? Doing great at Brum. 2 points of us.

 

I think so. He was like a boy in a sweetshop with recruitment and yet still left us with an unbalanced squad. He seems to do better when he has to coach players he inherits.

With regards to Pulis he is his own worst enemy. His reluctance to play Wing is baffling given his impact in the early season. For me if we are going to play positive football we have to have a player that will look to play the ball forward and create things. Wing can and has done that. Coming out with crossing stats seems like desperation and it is a stat that seems fairly irrelevant. Up to now I have been in the pro Pulis camp as I thought he brought an honesty to the place but I really cannot work out his post match comments with what went on on the pitch. My head is now starting to wonder who can do better with this squad, given that January rarely presents an opportunity to successfully refashion to the degree we need. I dont think we have players that can adapt if we brought someone in who wanted to play an expansive game. You need pace and intelligence.

Gibson is probably damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t with regards to sacking Pulis. Whatever happens though what has really let everyone down are the decisions around recruitment. Did we really need Flint Besic, Mcnair and Saville, the best part of £15m when we did not have the 2 things this manager needs to stamp his identity on the team, pace and power. I suppose though we cant change the squad, which only really leaves the manager to sacrifice. If the club have players lined up for early January then I think he has to see it through il the end of the season. If we are going to be scratching round til the last week of January though then recent performances would indicate we will drop out of the play off picture and a change may freshen things up. Who knows?

[BearSmog 1,382]

I am driving up to Middlesbrough tomorrow from South Wales, if I don't pass Pulis on the way I will be very disappointed. #pulisout

[Jamie-H 1,322]

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/30m-profit--remit-achieved-15589072

 

Didn't see this gem get posted over Christmas thought I'd put this here for posterity so if he goes out as I suspect and blows a wad in January well it would bring me great joy to again read the contradiction of the man every time words spill out of his mouth.

 

I tell you Strachan with a refresher in his mouth talking x factor in a post match interview after a home loss was the high point of Boro managers boiling my blood but I suspect Pulis will take that mantle before he's gone. Well done Tony you sold some players you also tried to tie down near 30 year old Prem wingers on 70k a week with 8 figure transfer fees so maybe go a bit easy on the lord and saviour spiel. If we were struggling this time last year what does us being a point better say about you?

 

If refresher bar chewing Strachan is the benchmark I think we're working our way through confectionary Tony right now you're on a mini refresher bar talking TOWIE but I have faith you'll get my blood to Strachan levels by the end of January.

[Dan1234 1,056]

Is he gone yet?

[boro_fan_in_brum 604]

Ha ha, I keep checking back to see if he's gone.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Think I should be manager to be honest. Title winners 2018/19, 31 games into 2019/20, comfortably 8th in the Prem, Tavernier has banged in 12 goals, more than Son Heung-Min, Aguero, Salah and Hazard. #WilsonForBoro

[Jimmy 140]

Usually like to appreciate both sides to an argument, but I’m really struggling to think of any benefits to keeping Pulis either in the short or long term.

Can anyone tell me why he’s the right man for us? Starting to get to the point where it’s pretty unanimous.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Usually like to appreciate both sides to an argument, but I’m really struggling to think of any benefits to keeping Pulis either in the short or long term.

Can anyone tell me why he’s the right man for us? Starting to get to the point where it’s pretty unanimous.

 

It's difficult. I'm not sure how I feel about it so much any more from a personal point of view. But I'd be foolish to think the views of 90+% of our fan-base isn't more meaningful than my own views. I don't think it matters as an individual whether you want to give Pulis time or not because the atmosphere around the club very much feels like it's dictating that. So many people want him gone that I don't really feel like my opinion would be valued either way.

 

At the end of the day, that is the right of the fan who works hard to pay money to sit and watch us play week-in, week-out. But I think this is a vicious cycle. We set ourselves up in a way that is quite limiting, we do alright and the pressure is barely eased, we do badly and the pressure increases tenfold as people can't stand football that neither excites nor delivers results. That pressure gets put onto the team who feel worse for not delivering results, start losing the discipline needed to provide better results in this 'Catenaccio'-esque set-up and as a team we start looking even worse, which increases the pressure, etc. etc. etc.

 

For me, I think the few things keeping me kind of onside is the idea of Pulis having good wide players to work with. Say January goes exceptionally well (I appreciate it's clutching at straws given I have little to no faith in a Pulis transfer window) and we bring in a couple of high quality difference makers in the wide areas of the pitch, players who have pace and the work rate to both work hard in the defensive unit and be capable of breaking out of that defence to support the striker. The team could succeed then, should the stars align in such a way. Pulis isn't wrong about the need for pace and width in this team's current setup, he's just not been pragmatic enough to change the way he plays football to accommodate the lack of width in the mean-time. And he will continue in this way until the end of the season should we not provide him with those kinds of players.

 

(He's kind of an anti-Monk, the manager who got everything off his Christmas list but couldn't make his mind which toys he wanted to play with. Pulis has a list of two or three presents he'd love and he knows he'd play with all of them. But he's not from the same well-off background Monk is so might even have to sell some of his other toys so his dad can try to buy him the ones he wants. He just better watch out for the villan of this story, Dean Smith, who might like to steal them from under Pulis' dad's nose!)

 

With that being the case, it basically depends on whether we can provide him the players he needs to make this work. If we can't, then why bother?

 

The only serious answer to that is if he provides too much value to Steve Gibson in areas other than on the pitch. If, and it's a big if, he is providing a great deal of value to our club off-field, stuff that might actually help us in the long run, do we throw him out for the sake of a manager who might not want anything to do with all the stuff needed to support the more 'head coach'y set-up some on here want to go for? Do we perhaps consider providing him some sort of non-tactical football advisory role instead? I don't see that happening at all, would probably undermine him to suggest it right now but it could be an option in order to allow us to fix the issues he's found whilst delivering a different tactical approach on the pitch.

[RiseAgainst 3,793]

The only serious answer to that is if he provides too much value to Steve Gibson in areas other than on the pitch. If, and it's a big if, he is providing a great deal of value to our club off-field, stuff that might actually help us in the long run, do we throw him out for the sake of a manager who might not want anything to do with all the stuff needed to support the more 'head coach'y set-up some on here want to go for?

 

This is a good point. But does anyone actually know what behind-the-scenes stuff Pulis is getting involved in?

[BegSteeleOrBoro 55]

The only serious answer to that is if he provides too much value to Steve Gibson in areas other than on the pitch. If, and it's a big if, he is providing a great deal of value to our club off-field, stuff that might actually help us in the long run, do we throw him out for the sake of a manager who might not want anything to do with all the stuff needed to support the more 'head coach'y set-up some on here want to go for?

 

This is a good point. But does anyone actually know what behind-the-scenes stuff Pulis is getting involved in?

 

It is a fair point, but if he is only adding value off the pitch then move him to director of football. It’s a bit of a weird argument that we need to modernise the club but that the manager should be the one to lead it (i.e an old manager led model). Also strange to think that he is going to revolutionise our scouting system to pick up undervalued gems - that’s not his specialty. Most of his signings have been players from the uk...

[Jamie-H 1,322]

https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/west-bromwich-albion/2017/04/19/tony-pulis-plotting-west-brom-training-ground-expansion/

 

To say Pulis has a track record on talking about 'overhauls' from training grounds to scouting rooms is an understatement, he promised it right up until his last press conference at West Brom. I remember when Karanka overhauled our methods and was greeted as a liberator and left a dictator who drilled his players so hard they ran to Gibson complaining how the defensive approach was hurting the team that got Aitor out the door. One theme of the stories about Pulis and overhauls and fixing the clubs rotten finances (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha) seem to me to be always screaming ITS NOT ME ITS THE TRAINING PITCH, THE SCOUTS, THE CHAIRMAN, THE PLAYERS AND THE FANS just seems like he might have a tiny problem of taking personal responsibility which probably won't gel with our chairman going forward lest we forget Aitor's treatment of Downing supposedly led to conversations 'a*** the players' that led to Gibson hearing these concerns and acting on these concerns our chairman has an ego.

 

Fascinating reading back articles from Pulis at WBA after every window/before every window there was always 'overhauls' he was looking at there was always scouts he was looking to hire and always a player he wanted that he leaks to the press nice and early in the window/over Christmas to put the pressure on and make it seem like he's trying to fix things if only x wasn't in his way. My all time favourite contortion of Pulis' was this one after deadline day 2016:

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/tony-pulis-reveals-hal-robson-8802450

 

The man doesn't hide who he is well, he doesn't cover his ego particularly well I don't foresee a happy ending to this situation he might have more respect for Gibson than he did other chairmen but if he needs a scapegoat there's a grinning chief executive down the hall ripe for a knifing.