Pulis

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I am a big admirer of the fella's motivational and man management skills, seems to get his tactics right for the limited resources he has at his disposal.
My question is ; is he capable of moulding a team to play the Tottenham way ?
 
He is the lord of anti football. And its a choice, not a constraint.

He got Stoke into the league playing Anti football, kept them up playing anti football, then spent a serious amount of money (relative to them of course) and didnt improve the football at all. Just made them a bit better at anti-football rather than had them start playing a bit.

And as Hughes and Martinez have shown, its not actually that dramatic a task to change it around. Hughes has them playing much more football than before (albeit hardly attractive) and I believe has them set for their best ever finish.

I like that Pulis can galvanise and motivate a squad. I like that he is reliable for a certain amount of success (ala BFS) but I dont think he has it in him to make a team play attractive football. He has that old school pragmatism of "get the job done at any cost" and thats all he seems to aim for.

I have tremendous respect for what he has done at Palace though, it reallyis remarkable and IMHO should have him in the running for manager of the season.
 
I'd take him over a few of the names we've been linked with, but I wouldn't prefer him at all as I couldn't see him molding this squad into a squad that plays the kind of football we like to see, which isn't really all that far away and as such would be a waste.
 
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With his tracksuit, cap, and meticulous grooming, Pulis always reminds me of a suburban crypto-fascist. The kind of guy who gets a bit too excited at his kids' football matches, but saves the real emotional outburst for the privacy of his home, where he has untrammeled access to an "antique German" paddle he bought off eBay that he can take to his underperforming 10 year old midfielders.

The model tory pillar of the community who shovels his considerable salary into funding various hate groups that sow discontent in council estates a world away.

The smiling patron of the small suburban shop who is always gracious (but never jokey) with the cashier, regardless of his national origin, but immediately assumes the worst should any youth come in who does not meet his rigorous cultural norms.

Etc.

I'm not saying Pulis is these things. I'm saying that when I look at him, this is what my imagination tells me about him.

(Watch he ends up being a trotskyist keeping the naxalites in clover)
This.
 
Consider this. He's never been relegated, no-matter how rubbish the team he's been in charge of.

Could you live in a Spurs world without Serious Relegation Fears?

Actually, despite the reputation of his teams I think it's difficult to know what Pullis would do with a team containing genuine attacking talent. Maybe he'd use his defensive organisational ability to form a unit that could set the attacking players free to do the damage? Maybe he's secretly wanted an attacking style all along and has just been forced into a pragmatic style?

All questions that hopefully we'll find the answer to one day when he's not managing Spurs.
 
Given that he has never pursued an attacking philosophy, why do you suppose he would go for it if an attacking side landed in his lap?

He has had more than enough cash at Stoke to build a quality side, all he ever did was buy more cloggers.
 
Consider this. He's never been relegated, no-matter how rubbish the team he's been in charge of.

Could you live in a Spurs world without Serious Relegation Fears?

Actually, despite the reputation of his teams I think it's difficult to know what Pullis would do with a team containing genuine attacking talent. Maybe he'd use his defensive organisational ability to form a unit that could set the attacking players free to do the damage? Maybe he's secretly wanted an attacking style all along and has just been forced into a pragmatic style?

All questions that hopefully we'll find the answer to one day when he's not managing Spurs.
I was wondering this, he could actually be a very good top level manager.
 
Given that he has never pursued an attacking philosophy, why do you suppose he would go for it if an attacking side landed in his lap?

He has had more than enough cash at Stoke to build a quality side, all he ever did was buy more cloggers.

I can't be arsed looking up the stats, but I am sure I remember reading somewhere that over the last few years, the only teams to have spent more on transfers (net spend) than Stoke were Chelsea and City.
 
I can't be arsed looking up the stats, but I am sure I remember reading somewhere that over the last few years, the only teams to have spent more on transfers (net spend) than Stoke were Chelsea and City.

Its exactly the same argument as Moyes.

People would say "Oh but he never has any money" or "He has to play that way to get results, because he has such limited resources" but the truth of it is and always was Everton (and Stoke) played the way they did because thats what the manager WANTED.

Because of which, Ive never bought into the idea "if they just get a chance they could be really exciting..."

Moyes and Pulis spent more than enough time at their respective clubs to build a team in any shape they liked. Look at Swansea for exhibit A. Look at what Dyche has achieved at Burnley on a shoe string in a single season. Look at what Martinez has done at Everton in just one season.

That Stoke and Everton were eye bleedingly poor to watch was by design, not circumstance.

Pulis at any other club will be just the same as he was at Stoke.
 
Everyone should know by now that spend on transfers is not as important to the quality of incoming player as the amount spent on their wages. We might have spent almost £100m on players last summer but it's £100m on players that know they're not in the £150k+ a week earnings bracket.

Stoke have the 14th highest salary outgoings in the league. The biggest spenders on wages tend to be the top clubs, not the biggest spenders on transfers (wages wise it's City >> Chelsea, Utd > Woolwich > Liverpool >> Spurs in that order and magnitude).

Just for the record, I don't think Pulis would play attacking football. I just think it would be interesting to see him given a punt at a bigger club (again, somewhere other than Spurs)/
 
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