tony pulis discusses his boro period

Jonny Ingbar said:
But everyone of those mentioned would improve us now, never mind under Woodvate, who had a very poor squad to work with and none of the experience to help him do it.
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Let's not get carried away, not every one of those players would improve us now - the majority of them I wouldn't have back for free.
 
festa5 said:
Worse? Yes.

Negative and boring? Can't think of any as bad as he was. He intentionally sets out to ruin the game as a spectacle. You need to be winning a lot of matches to justify that approach and he doesn't win anywhere near enough.

I can only assume he either hates the game and it's his mission to ruin it for everyone else or is in fact actually incredibly limited as a coach and he can't do anything different. Maybe both.
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One part of me really hopes it is the former - destroy and exit at its best. Money, money, money, money!
 
Balance the books? The club sold our best 3 players, its hardly prudent financial management from Pulis. Did he sit in on the transfer negotiations with Leeds, Wolves and Burnley?!

Traore sold for what his buyout clause was, Gibsons fee was probably fair market value at the time and the decision to sell Bamford and keep Britt is a sackable decision on its own.

He/We then went and spent a large chunk of that money on Flint and Saville which was massively over the odds and large loan fees for the likes of Hugill and Mikel.

Balance the books my ****.

Then on the pitch he served up the worst brand of football I've seen in my life, playing 4 centre backs and 4 central midfielders in home games against teams at the bottom of the table.

Listen to interviews from players that have played under him, its all about defensive shape and spoiling the game. There's no coaching on attacking or creativity under him. He sucked the joy out of going to the match for many fans, the only credit I'll give him was for putting his arm around Traore and getting his confidence up. Apart from that he was the worst manager I've ever seen, and I think the way he manages his teams cheats the fans.
 
brain_in_a_jar said:
Let's not get carried away, not every one of those players would improve us now - the majority of them I wouldn't have back for free.
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Randolph - massive difference
Flint - injuries to Hall & Fry?
Batth - same and he’s captain material
Besic - had a great season with us
Mikel - pure class, couldn’t manage every game.. but would Defoe see out a game.
Downing - was still doing it for Blackburn
Hugill - busy, busy, busy creates problems
Braithwaite - a total gem in the championship
 
brain_in_a_jar said:
I think some of what he said is valid, but he wasn't just brought in to balance the books. You could have got anybody in to do that, the target still had to be promotion with that team and he failed.

What I disliked about the Pulis period particularly that last season was any notion of even attempting to play football went completely out of the window, to the point that 5-4-1 was the norm. Thoroughly awful boring football week in week out.

Warnock's brand of football isn't the most attractive but it still isn't anywhere near the same level of mind numbingly boring stuff served up in that season.
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"Warnock's brand of football isn't the most attractive but it still isn't anywhere near the same level of mind numbingly boring stuff served up in that season."

Disagree, I think it is pretty much as bad now. Basically hoof ball and eveyone blame Britt.
 
Uwefuchs said:
Balance the books? The club sold our best 3 players, its hardly prudent financial management from Pulis. Did he sit in on the transfer negotiations with Leeds, Wolves and Burnley?!

Traore sold for what his buyout clause was, Gibsons fee was probably fair market value at the time and the decision to sell Bamford and keep Britt is a sackable decision on its own.

He/We then went and spent a large chunk of that money on Flint and Saville which was massively over the odds and large loan fees for the likes of Hugill and Mikel.

Balance the books my ****.

Then on the pitch he served up the worst brand of football I've seen in my life, playing 4 centre backs and 4 central midfielders in home games against teams at the bottom of the table.

Listen to interviews from players that have played under him, its all about defensive shape and spoiling the game. There's no coaching on attacking or creativity under him. He sucked the joy out of going to the match for many fans, the only credit I'll give him was for putting his arm around Traore and getting his confidence up. Apart from that he was the worst manager I've ever seen, and I think the way he manages his teams cheats the fans.
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Bolasie mentions in the nicest possible way (on yusef's interview) that pulis added that defensive element to his game. at the time I heard that is why players didn't want to come to the club. Mitrović, Abraham, Bolasie et al
 
davidmills said:
"Warnock's brand of football isn't the most attractive but it still isn't anywhere near the same level of mind numbingly boring stuff served up in that season."

Disagree, I think it is pretty much as bad now. Basically hoof ball and eveyone blame Britt.
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Warnock is much more nuanced as a manager than Pulis. If Pulis had a Ferrari he's drive it like a tractor. Pullisball is nothing but a percentage game straight out of Graham Taylor on page playbook.

Pullis players checkers where as Warnock plays chess.
 
davidmills said:
"Warnock's brand of football isn't the most attractive but it still isn't anywhere near the same level of mind numbingly boring stuff served up in that season."

Disagree, I think it is pretty much as bad now. Basically hoof ball and eveyone blame Britt.
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When you can find a strength of "Britt" then maybe you could explain how we could play to that strength.

As for pulis, he is a pathological liar and a crook.
He didn't balance any books, the latest published accounts for his full season 2018-19 are due and will make an interesting read.
The club generated a big profit over book value on the sale of Gibson, Traore and a more modest one on Forshaw and Bamford.
He then took that and blew it on
1. McNair - who he never even played.
2. Flint - who was useless and lost the club £3m in a year.
3. Saville - who is now virtually worthless after 3 years of plodding around being ****.
4. Besic, Hugill, Mikel, VLP and other loanees who added absolutely nothing.

The bloke sold quality and bought rubbish, loading the wage bill to over £40m in his second season, bigger than the parachute payment/full media earnings that season.

pulis took over a horror show from Monk and actually made it worse.
 
davidmills said:
"Warnock's brand of football isn't the most attractive but it still isn't anywhere near the same level of mind numbingly boring stuff served up in that season."

Disagree, I think it is pretty much as bad now. Basically hoof ball and eveyone blame Britt.
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You might not like to watch it but the stats would probably suggest there's a world of difference.

Most games we have far more shots on goal than under Pulis, where it was about stifling teams and perhaps nicking one if we can (think 4 centre backs along your back 4, all 6ft plus and never crossing the half way line).

Warnock seems to get the ball forward quickly and encourages his teams to get shots on goal. He's hampered at the moment by misfiring/weak as p*ss forwards, but the increased numbers of shots on goal and chances created to my eyes are an undeniable difference. Yes, we might be lacking in quality in certain areas but we have more ambition than under Pulis.

I haven't actually checked the chances created out by the way, I'm just going on my impression from watching the games and looking at the after match stats etc.
 
newyddion said:
Randolph - massive difference
Flint - injuries to Hall & Fry?
Batth - same and he’s captain material
Besic - had a great season with us
Mikel - pure class, couldn’t manage every game.. but would Defoe see out a game.
Downing - was still doing it for Blackburn
Hugill - busy, busy, busy creates problems
Braithwaite - a total gem in the championship
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I'm just shaking my head, honestly.
Randolph - I'll give you that one
flint - awful defender, haven't missed him at all.
Batth - slower than my nan who's been dead for 25 years. I've forgot we even had him he was so insignificant.
Besic - Sav gets so much stick on here, if we'd bought Bsic he was going to cost us 6 million quid, he can't even lace sav's boots. A non entity of a player. I don't even know where he is now. His second season with us he was awful, the first spell all he had to do was give it to traore.
Mikel - see besic another non entity of a midfielder. Looked good to start but then did nothing, I'm still not sure what he was good at. Hardly pulling up trees at stoke either.
downing - just look at his stats, well past it.
hugill - maybe, just because the rest of our strikers are gash. That's not saying much.
Braithwaite - No words, never been so glad to see the back of a footballer in all my years supporting boro.
 
I thought Adam Webster would have been the perfect replacement for Ben Gibson
also that the money brought in from Adama Traore should have been spent on Jarrod Bowen and Ollie Watkins..

funny how things turn out...
 
brain_in_a_jar said:
Let's not get carried away, not every one of those players would improve us now - the majority of them I wouldn't have back for free.
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newyddion said:
Randolph
Flint—Batth
Besic—Mikel
Downing
Hugill—Braithwaite

some big big players in there like!
they all make a HUGE difference
drop them into our squad this season and we’re league smashers!!
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We weren't league smashers then and we wouldn't be now either.
 
The players then went in the summer of 2019

Hugill @ Norwich, top of the Championship
Braithwaite @ Barcelona OK struggling, but he is also Danish International
Downing went to Blackburn top half of Championship regular
Besic @ Everton reserves and on loan @ Sheff United, still a regular Bosnian international
Flint @ Cardiff top 6 last season and possibly this season too
Randolph @ West Ham and ROI first choice (went in Jan 2020)
Batth @ Stoke City top half of Championship regular (went in Jan 2019)
Mikel - Chinese Premier League?

Surely the above are all top half Championship players, replaced by £3.5m worth of D1 players at the time (Bola, Dyjksteel, Browne), free transfer keeper, Roberts on loan and Spence, Coulson, Pears from the under 23s. It felt like 1984 again. We finished where I expected, helped by NW team to get out of the relegation mire (who I don't blame Woodgate for, in the main - he was brand new with a negative budget).

Ref Tony P - Tony always looks after Tony - he doesn't make mistakes. You get the good things but not the bad things. I have met quite a few of these types in my life.
 
newyddion said:
Randolph - massive difference
Flint - injuries to Hall & Fry?
Batth - same and he’s captain material
Besic - had a great season with us
Mikel - pure class, couldn’t manage every game.. but would Defoe see out a game.
Downing - was still doing it for Blackburn
Hugill - busy, busy, busy creates problems
Braithwaite - a total gem in the championship
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Randolph - yes, would walk into the team
Flint & Batth - would be sat on the bench
Besic - no better than what we have got now
Mikel - was class, but was never going to stay
Downing - Version #1 was my one of my favorite players. The sequel was not actually that good.
Hugil - As a non-scoring striker, he would fit in well with the rest of our strikers. Scored less than Britt this season
Braithwaite - Would only be a "gem" if he actually wanted to be here - which he obviously didn't
 
Steer said:
Randolph - yes, would walk into the team
Flint & Batth - would be sat on the bench
Besic - no better than what we have got now
Mikel - was class, but was never going to stay
Downing - Version #1 was my one of my favorite players. The sequel was not actually that good.
Hugil - As a non-scoring striker, he would fit in well with the rest of our strikers. Scored less than Britt this season
Braithwaite - Would only be a "gem" if he actually wanted to be here - which he obviously didn't
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Batth when Fry was injured, Flint when Hall was injured. Besic, Mikel & Downing would be decent when Tav was out.

Hugill would be an option when Fletcher is out.

Braithwaite didn’t come to play Pulisball.. he wanted to be the striker that got boro promoted to the prem.
 
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