Loveless
I must not be the only fan who feels like supporting Stoke right now feels like a loveless marriage. I have the same feeling now towards Stoke as I did under Pulis’s last season. I don’t look forward to games and at this moment I am really on the fence about renewing my season ticket.
I should probably mention that I live in Milton Keynes and it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach every home game. But this will be my 20th season ticket so feel I must. But at this moment watching Stoke has become a chore, seeing players like Bojan leaving leave you wondering what master plan Hughes has come up with, and you get even more depressed when the master plan is Charlie Adam.
Darren Gough said it best at the start of the season during another one of our rough patches; he said that managers seem to over think the simplest decisions when they are in trouble.
It feels like Hughes has been doing this all season, constantly playing the old guard to ground out draws or to protect the goal. The free-flowing football that Hughes had implemented seems to be gone; when Bojan left even he had said that he doesn’t suit this new style of direct play.
Why are we playing direct football? We have spent millions on players who are exciting and capable with the ball at their feet, yet we insist on playing Charlie Adam and Crouch. I am a fan of Glenn Whelan however, I feel that when he is in the team the midfield is much more grounded, probably not the right word to describe it but fuck it.
I have been saying it’s time for Hughes to go for months, but my biggest reservation about Hughes going is that its better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t. What manager are we going to get if Hughes leaves? Some of the other TBPTV bloggers reckon that Mancini is the best option. I think many people would agree, but I really can’t see him come to Stoke. Ranieri would be a gamble, yes he won the league with Leicester, but this season he has been awful.
If I had any money to gamble I’d put money on Pulis returning, Coates’s loyalty could be a huge deciding factor. Whoever we get if Hughes leaves, needs to bring back the love to this loveless marriage, I want to enjoy driving up the M6 every other weekend, I want to see us try and play the football we did when Hughes first got here. I don’t want to have to sit in the south car park for what feels like a week after the final whistle feeling depressed because Hughes didn’t bring on a new striker till the 85th minute.
Written by Dan Morris
Trackback from your site.
