If Stoke City possessed a Latin-laced insignia it would probably translate as ‘by hook or by crook.’
In every post-match interview following a positive result for his team, Pulis is forced to play the role of apologist. Knowing that his team have achieved what they worked exceptionally hard for, while everyone else thinks his side have set football back 50 years.
West Bromwich Albion boss Tony Mowbray opined last week that he had witnessed 90 minutes of dross after The Baggies’ 1-0 defeat at The Britannia Stadium.
But at what point does entertaining fans become more important than winning?
For neutrals, watching the match against Hull was the wrong way of spending a Saturday afternoon and once the novelty of a man being able to throw a ball 50 yards wears off, football’s chroniclers really will have nothing positive to write about this team.
But Pulis’s only responsibility is to his club and their fans, it is not to entertain a TV nation or even to further football as the beautiful game.
I subscribe to the view that fans will only be truly happy if their team are picking up results. Inner peace does not come into it.
To Mowbray and his moralistic brethren, Stoke are football’s equivalent of the anti-Christ, but, while Albion sit bottom of the league and are headed inevitably for relegation, Stoke are making a fist and a fight of staying up.
Potters fans revel in their notoriety. Stoke are a horrible team to play against – and have been for as long as Pulis has been manager. A team of bullies, who resort continually to direct balls, long throws and time wasting.
Does it really take Delap 30 seconds to compose himself before he is able to launch a throw? Of course not.
Pulis knows that by reducing the amount of time that the football is in open play will increase his team’s chances of claiming at least a draw against opponents who, on every occasion this season, will be their technical superiors.
Essentially, Stoke don’t play football at all but a game of percentages.
If Stoke survive this year they will be the worst set of players ever to post back-to-back Premier League seasons but shouldn’t that be to a manager’s credit? Is it not the manager’s brief to achieve the best results possible with the players he has at his disposal?