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Tony Pulis is overrated and out of work


Con

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Con, from the time he was there they were the 8th best side in the league. That'd be remarkable for any side that comes up via the playoffs, or any promoted side in general. And he did it without a summer transfer window to plan.

 

So you'd have had Pulis at Villa over Lambert?

 

 

Absolutely.

 

Our football under Lambert is at least as bad to watch as Pulis', but at least we'd win occasionally.

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I don't believe you. Win win ocassionally under Lambert.

 

 

 

"Aren't especially talented." So you just admitted his players weren't that good.

 

I said the defenders are old, experienced and internationals. That counts for a lot. They could be young, not especially talented, and have no international experience.

 

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The argument is not that Tony Pulis does not deserve any compliments as manager this season. It is simply that he is overrated. The compliments he has gotten are excessive in proportion to the achievement. You'd thought he'd won something. Palace is not the only promoted team to have retained their place in the Premier League this season. Hull is the other. Bruce made Hull hard to beat and after the winter transfer window got them scoring goals. He even took them to the final of the FA Cup. Now that's an achievement, yet nobody is talking about Bruce in the same terms as Pulis.

 

Let's make a comparison with groundsmen.

 

A great groundsman mows all sorts of impressive patterns into the turf. Doesn't need to do that but it looks great and the audience enjoys it.

 

If Tony Pulis was a groundsman he'd still be using one of these.

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Palace is not the only promoted team to have retained their place in the Premier League this season. Hull is the other. Bruce made Hull hard to beat and after the winter transfer window got them scoring goals. He even took them to the final of the FA Cup. Now that's an achievement, yet nobody is talking about Bruce in the same terms as Pulis.

Because Pulis took over a team that had 3 points in 10 games? Because Pulis had them finishing comfortable and had he been there the whole season, in the top half? Because Steve Bruce nearly got relegated? Because the Palace squad is incredibly shit and by far the worst on paper in the league? Oh and Hul beat 1 Premier League side (a Sunderland team in awful form at the time) to get to the Final.

Edited by kurtsimonw
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Palace is not the only promoted team to have retained their place in the Premier League this season. Hull is the other. Bruce made Hull hard to beat and after the winter transfer window got them scoring goals. He even took them to the final of the FA Cup. Now that's an achievement, yet nobody is talking about Bruce in the same terms as Pulis.

Because Pulis took over a team that had 3 points in 10 games? Because Pulis had them finishing comfortable and had he been there the whole season, in the top half? Because Steve Bruce nearly got relegated? Because the Palace squad is incredibly shit and by far the worst on paper in the league? Oh and Hul beat 1 Premier League side (a Sunderland team in awful form at the time) to get to the Final.

 

 

No, Pulis took over a team that had 7 points in 12 games. You keep forgetting Keith Millen was care-taker manager for 3 games (L, D, W), before Pulis took the reins.

 

Also, I challenge your view the Palace squad is "incredibly shit." 

 

Delaney and Gabbidon are very experienced defenders with international experience. Joel Ward is a great defender. They were all injured for a time during the first 10 games.

 

Had they played for Villa, they would have helped our defence whether Pulis was managing us or not. They might not be the most talented but they have so much experience, which counts for a lot.

 

Now, I wouldn't want Villa to sign these players because at 32 and 34 they are too old and we are a club that builds for the future, but I'm convinced those centre-halves are far more capable defenders than you give credit due to the amount of experience they have.

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Do I dare to ask the question if maybe, Con, just maybe, you're writing all this as a result of Bannan dropping out of fashion under Pulis? I know it's uncharitable, but the mind does wander in that direction.

 

To be honest, it's no more uncharitable really than addressing your argument at face value. We're to believe that Mariappa and Delaney are better than Vlaar, for example? You say they're 'experienced', other people could just as easily say 'past it'. Speroni better than Guzan? Moxey better than Bertrand? He took a very, very average team and transformed them. Your argument about Keith Millen is fair, but it hardly reflects badly on Pulis that he took that success and continued it. Does anyone hold Adkins doing well against Pochettino? 

 

He's a better manager than Lambert, if what you want is good results. Sorry, but there it is. 

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Do I dare to ask the question if maybe, Con, just maybe, you're writing all this as a result of Bannan dropping out of fashion under Pulis? I know it's uncharitable, but the mind does wander in that direction.

 

 

As an attacking player it is all linked. Pulis doesn't know how to play attacking players. They even "signed" Tom Ince during the winter transfer window. £1m that cost them. Hardly played him and he didn't make an impression on the club.

 

To be honest, it's no more uncharitable really than addressing your argument at face value. We're to believe that Mariappa and Delaney are better than Vlaar, for example? You say they're 'experienced', other people could just as easily say 'past it'. Speroni better than Guzan? Moxey better than Bertrand? He took a very, very average team and transformed them. Your argument about Keith Millen is fair, but it hardly reflects badly on Pulis that he took that success and continued it. Does anyone hold Adkins doing well against Pochettino? 

 

He's a better manager than Lambert, if what you want is good results. Sorry, but there it is. 

 

 

 

Not better than Vlaar but they would have been more solid with Vlaar than Clark or Baker. As I said, we are a club that builds for the future. Clark and Baker are the future. They need experience, and when they get experience I believe they have the talent to be better than the already experienced Crystal Palace defenders.

 

Joel Ward vs Bertrand? Joel Ward.

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Ward is primarily a right back. I agree he's good, but he's not that good. You're making him sound like a world-beater. 

 

And it doesn't matter how you play attacking players, if you win games. Nobody's saying he's a flair manager, we're saying he's an effective manager. That's all the claim is. 

Edited by HanoiVillan
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Ward is primarily a right back. I agree he's good, but he's not that good. You're making him sound like a world-beater. 

 

And it doesn't matter how you play attacking players, if you win games. Nobody's saying he's a flair manager, we're saying he's an effective manager. That's all the claim is. 

 

Joel Ward is that good - easily good enough for a starting spot at one of the top 7. Crystal Palace fans rate him their best player.

 

Last season he played left back 12 times, right back 18 times. He actually performed slightly better at left back than right back. He got two assists from left back and his whoscored rating was 7.4 vs 7.3.

 

You might be merely claiming Pulis is an "effective manager" but my point is that there are so many people in the media who overrate him. Presumably you don't believe he should manage the England national team - players like Adam Lallana and Ross Barkley? 

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Ward is primarily a right back. I agree he's good, but he's not that good. You're making him sound like a world-beater. 

 

And it doesn't matter how you play attacking players, if you win games. Nobody's saying he's a flair manager, we're saying he's an effective manager. That's all the claim is. 

 

Joel Ward is that good - easily good enough for a starting spot at one of the top 7. Crystal Palace fans rate him their best player.

 

Last season he played left back 12 times, right back 18 times. He actually performed slightly better at left back than right back. He got two assists from left back and his whoscored rating was 7.4 vs 7.3.

 

You might be merely claiming Pulis is an "effective manager" but my point is that there are so many people in the media who overrate him. Presumably you don't believe he should manage the England national team - players like Adam Lallana and Ross Barkley? 

 

 

Which team in the top 7 would he start for? And if that's true, why aren't they bidding for him?

 

I'm still not seeing the people in the media who are overrating him so much. Maybe they're out there, but I need more proof than 2 pages of google results. The results for 'magician' start with a few random Twitter users, continues with the Stoke online fanzine from 2008, and end with a spoof article claiming that he's Paul Daniels' love-child. The ones for 'genius' - posted earlier - include a result from the online organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party, two separate blog entries from a certain Irish bookmaker, the same Stoke fanzine, and yes, finally, an article from what I consider a part of 'the media', Eurosport. 

 

I just don't see where all this clamour for Pulis to become England manager is being expressed. For the record, no I don't think he'd be a good England manager, it requires a different set of skills. Mind you, all England managers fail in the end, so I hardly see how he'd be a lot worse. 

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I don't think Pulis did any better a job than Lambert did given the various crises at Villa.

 

I would not say Pulis was a better manager this season than Pelegrini, Rodgers, Mourinho, Pochettino, and Martinez.

 

I would not have wished Pulis on Stoke or Hull either and Sunderland didn't need him. If you want remarkable, how about the job Poyet, getting results against Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea when he needed them?

 

In terms of performance I would not have had Pulis at Villa ahead of at least 9 managers (the 9th being Tim Sherwood).

 

I've only just remembered this post!

 

'Pulis didn't do a better job than Lambert', absolute classic. 

 

158634176.jpg

 

Even better is the bit where Poyet is announced as a saviour for winning games when he needed to, as though the fact that Pulis had gotten Palace out of danger earlier in the run-in somehow reflected badly on him. 

 

Gus-Poyet.jpg

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Let's make a comparison with groundsmen.

 

A great groundsman mows all sorts of impressive patterns into the turf. Doesn't need to do that but it looks great and the audience enjoys it.

 

If Tony Pulis was a groundsman he'd still be using one of these.

This is the shittest analogy I've ever read.

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No. A manager who gets results with shit football is IMO worse than a manager who fails to do better with attacking football. 
 
 

 

 

Wrong (IMO)

 

Football is a results business. You play to your strengths. 

 

Absolutely.

 

In fact I don't think I could disagree more with what Con has put there. It's absolute nonsense in fact.

 

There is a point, in football, where a desire to play "the right way" may become important. Look at Bayern. Incredible team, hired Pep to try and play a different, more attractive style (whether that's worked is another story)

 

But at a team like Palace and, unfortunately, us, that should never come into the equation.

You play for results.

 

There is absolutely no way that a manager who, for example, fails to keep his team up but plays attractive football has done a better job than a manager that does keep that team up playing shit football.

 

You could argue that the manager with "better football" (I hate this whole better football shite. There is no right way to play) may be a better manager if he was at a better team. But that's beside the point.

You play to win. If you win by playing good football then kudos. That's the ideal. If your team isn't capable of winning whilst playing that football, then persisting with a losing formula is the very definition of being a bad manager.

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The real key to using a manager like Pulis, is having the balls to get rid of him when the time is right, even if it appears he has done a good job.

 

Stoke probably held onto him for slightly too long.

 

He has a ceiling and he's never going to surpass that. So use a manager like him to get you into being a midtable team and then have the balls to move him on and get someone in who's capable of taking the team forward from there.

Southampton displayed that perfectly. Adkins wasn't, by any means, doing a "bad job". But they realised he may have a limit and they got in a better manager.

 

That's the key to a manager like him.

 

To go full circle back to Villa, and hindsight is a beautiful thing, maybe you could relate that to MON. MON was a superb manager to get us from where we were into that top 6. Maybe if we'd had an inkling that he'd never get us into that top 4 bracket and we'd had the ability, when we were rising as a team, to get in a more accomplished manager we'd have made that final(?) step up to the big time. As it was, MON hit his ceiling and we've suffered as a result.

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Let's make a comparison with groundsmen.

 

A great groundsman mows all sorts of impressive patterns into the turf. Doesn't need to do that but it looks great and the audience enjoys it.

 

If Tony Pulis was a groundsman he'd still be using one of these.

This is the shittest analogy I've ever read.

 

 

It is a spectacularly bad comparison, and intriguingly, actually relevant to the Pulis v Lambert, Palace v Villa discussion we're having, albeit not in a way which flatter's Con's argument

 

For example, I would feel confident in saying that our groundstaff prepare our pitch beautifully for every home game. I can't remember the last time it didn't look like a bowling green. The Queen's corgi's would be too embarrassed to soil it.  Palace, by contrast, have a rough pitch in a small ground, and it cuts up badly. 

 

One of these teams lost 10 home games this season. 

 

It turns out that results aren't about prettiness

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However, Stevo, I don't entirely agree with you either. It seems to me there's an obvious tension between this:

 

"But at a team like Palace and, unfortunately, us, that [playing good football] should never come into the equation.

You play for results."

 

and this:

 

"He has a ceiling and he's never going to surpass that. So use a manager like him to get you into being a midtable team and then have the balls to move him on and get someone in who's capable of taking the team forward from there."

 

I don't understand how you can know a manager has a ceiling of mid-table? I mean, if that's all that was possible with the players at the club, as it was at Palace this season, and arguably as it was when Pulis was at Stoke, how can you know he wouldn't be able to achieve anything with a better team? Mourinho is a negative manager, it hasn't stopped him being successful (I'm not saying Pulis is as good as Mourinho). But in another world, where Mourinho's first job had been at a relegation-threatened club which he led to midtable safety, wouldn't you have just known that was his ceiling? And wouldn't you have been wrong?

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He's done a good job at Palace but it's only been half a season Phil Brown had a good half season at Hull. I know he did well at Stoke too but they had a big budget and perhaps could have done better and at the time he left them his reputation amongst football fans was pretty low.

 

One bad thing about his success so far with Palace is that it could have a bad affect on the style of play as a whole in the league if other managers look at it see that it gets results and try and copy. A sort of rotten apple theory I guess.

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