I'm a big supporter of Tony, I have a lot of trust in his tactics. But lately I think he's just got it wrong.

On the Tuncay incident on Sunday, he'd burnt his boats putting 2 forwards on but could have still substituted someone like Delap to being that extra defender on.

I'm getting frustrated at Stoke seeming to be settled with a 1 - 0 lead only to throw it away. Sunday was another prime example, and even when they equalised we seemed happy with a draw when we should have taken them apart!

(Rant over)

On a brighter note, Etherington seems to be finding his form!

I agree with what you say but I would like to suggest a few specific remedies to the problems the team has:
1) The midfield can barely make an incisive pass between them - partic Whitehead and Delap. Whitehead will run all day but cannot pass or tackle well, cannot play the defensive midfield role as well as Diao and cannot shoot for goal. I did not see a single incisive pass from Whithead all afternoon. Exactly the same could be said about Cresswell. - Whitehead has become Cresswell Mark 2. How did we spend £5 million on him?! Compare him to Jimmy Bullard who also cost (Hull) £5 million. Bullard is not even match fit but one always had the feeling he would make a pass count - with many incisive long passes included. He has poise on the ball - and can shoot. Noone in Stoke's midfield has that poise on the ball - except Etherington and to some extent, Whelan - least of all Whitehead. Stoke badly need to buy a Bullard type creative attacking midfield general in January. Otherwise we will continue to lose the ball in midfield, attacks break down and too much pressure will be placed on our back four - and we will continue to lose leads we have created.
2) With Diao injured, Stoke should have played Lawrence on the right against Hull with Delap in the holding midfield role, where he is more comfortable. Whitehead is barely good enough for the bench. We should attack the weaker teams like Hull, Wolves and Portsmouth with creative players.
3) Tony Pulis yet again showed himself to be too cautious. This is at the heart of why we lose leads. Attack is often the best means of defence. We need a solid back four with Diao in the defensive holding role and then we need creative and energetic players in midfield who are comfortable on the ball. Why not play three strikers - add Tuncay to Beattie and Fuller? Tottenham, Man Utd and many other teams play three strikers - one or two of whom double up as pacy attacking creative midfield players. Fuller should not be used as a Sidibe type target man to hold up balls hoofed up to him from the back four, as he is at the moment. More creative players like Tuncay and Lawrence behind him will play to Fuller's strengths instead of his weaknesses. He needs more incisive through balls on the ground that he can run on to and use his speed.
4) Huth may be a good central defender but he is not a right back. He was directly responsible for Hull's first goal. He is too slow for right back. I am sure we would have lost to Tottenham if Huth had played right back - Lennon etc would have run rings round him all afternoon.
5) Stoke City needs to get its act together ASAP or we will get stuck in a relegation battle. Unlike last year, Stoke has a very difficult run of fixtures at the end of the season and needs to be fully safe at least a month before the end of the season. We are at present five points from the bottom three when we should be at least ten points clear of there.

Tony Pulis has done a good job but he really must be bolder against the weaker teams.

I could add more but that is enough for the moment!

Once again, like against Wolves, we've gone and scored only to have nothing left in the tank. I can't put my finger on exactly whats going wrong but i've come up with the following observations and criticisms..

1) Our midfielders cannot last 70 minutes. Therefore, they need to be subbed at half time, not once we've conceded. Wolves and Hull are examples of this.

2) Whitehead and Whelan in the past two games?.. Non existant.

3) Faye. Looking sloppy over recent games.

4) Wilko, solid at getting the ball clear but needs to actually pass it out of danger, not just kick it away and allow the opposition another attack. We're just prolonging the inevitable.

5) Delap - throws not working anymore, replace him with Lawrence or Tuncay.

4) Tuncay. He'll be gone in January. I don't know what Pulis was thinking humiliating him like that. Delap, Ethers, Beattie, etc should all have been subbed ahead of him.

5) Said it after the Wolves game that we have no other tactics but sit back and soak up pressure and was proved right in the Hull game. I hope this defeat gets Pulis to rethink his team selection and start playing with the best 11 rather than his best buddies.

I'm not a big fan of TP if i'm honest. On the one hand we're in the Prem and we've stayed up which is good and down to our only styleof play, but when we go out to defend against the likes of wolves and hull, two teams we should be looking to win, i'm concerned. Pulis has done nothing to make me think that he knows any other way to play the game, and now that we have more resources to switch our gameplay around with, he seems to have nothing up his sleeve.

If we continue to play like this we'll be near the bottom of the table come January.

Whats so dificult about playing this team? To me, it's pretty obvious. Especially against the smaller teams.

Sorensen, Wilko/Collins, Shawcross, Faye, Huth
Lawrence, Ethers, Tuncay, Diou/Whitehead (diamond)
Beattie/Kitson, Fuller

Foster i echo almost all of your points.

Most of what needs saying has been said by Martin or the guys above me. But i will reiterate my main bugbears.

'White'head rhymes with what i think of him.
Stop playing 4 centre back across the defense.
Stop messing Tuncay about.
Dont drop Kitson when he's hitting form and scoring more than the clearly unfit Beattie.
Mama is useless. We dont need him currently, injury just makes his inclusion even more inexplicable.
Start playing Lawrence which should help us not completely bypass the midfield with a big hoof.
Delap brings nothing to the game. Poor quality and his throw is old hat.
Better service is required to Fuller who can produce something special on his day, but is most of the time sent no hope balls.
Stop settling for 1 goals margins, play positive not negative football. Currently we dont employ any tactics at all.

Think that covers it. Im happy with where we are in the prem but the last 2 results have got right up my nose. But even though we have 16 points these issues of mine have been coming for a while.

At least Ethers is looking good for us! Yay a plus point! :D

Can't believe sundays farce, it certainly left a bitter taste and as for Tuncay's treatment it was dreadful wether it was for the good of the team not...one of the midfield should have made way as we know Tuncay can play perfectly well in there, when for heavens sake is TP going to give this lad his chance.....next thing he'll be off and other transfer targets will look how he was treated and not come for fear of the same treatment......the team looks vunerable at the minute and we,re certainly scoring no where near enough goals. I,d like to see TP shake things up a little.....may I suggest Sorenson in goal a back four of wilkinson on the right, huth and shawcross across the middle and collins on the left....faye playing the holding midfielder with ethers and lawrence on the left and right respectively and tuncay just behind a front two of either fuller/beattie or fuller /kitson.....rotating the squad a little not only keeps players on thier toes but also the opposition

Sundays match was awful! Pulis selection policy of Whitehead plus 10 is awful.

I havea few points to make:

1) Pulis treatment of Tuncay can be summed up in one word - panic. If he had taken just 1 minute to think he would have replace Whelan as his legs had gone and left tuncay on the field to play in midfield to replace him.

2) It is not just the result that sickens me but our lack of drive and ambition to get the win, and the continual selection of players in the wrong positions. Huth never was and never will be a right back! Wilko gets a slating for hoofing the ball forward when all Huth can do is kick it into touch.

3) It is blatantly clear that stoke require a holding midfield player to patrol in front of the back four and release some of our attacking players.

4) Delap is not a winger.

5)Diao (to my surprise) has played well in the holding role in the centre - but he is always injured.

6) I think if we accomodate Tuncay in a midfield diamond we will actually give the opposition all sorts of headaches

7) James beattie is off the pace so lets make use of Kitson not p### him off like we have been doing. I accept that until the pre season he looked a spare part but since then he has proved himself but TP only wants his buddies.

8) My team to accomodate all the central defenders we have would be:

Sorensen

Wilkinson Shawcross Huth Collins

A.D. Faye

Lawrence Etherington

Tuncay

Fuller Kitson

This team will give balance strength and flair to SCFC - and accomodate (nearly)all of TP's cronies.

....sum up what im thinking but id like have my say so here goes

1) the most obvious point. why did he sub tuncay? why do you sub a fresh set of legs and leave two tired and ineffective players like delap and whitehead on? why do you go negative when your desperate to score a goal? we defo needed bring on wilko but at the expense of delap or whitehead, NOT tuncay. i could go onto the excuses for not playing him but everyone knows they are what they are, excuses

2) speaking of wilko, why has he dropped him again? whats he done to deserve that? he was excellant against wolves and, in my opinion, ten times better than huth!! then theres collins. he is simply s**t. ive never seen a worse performance than his. people say delap was poor (which i'll disagree with in a bit) but collins was awful and he is whats making our defence so poor!

3) delap. now people are slagging him off which i think is unfair. you need to remember that hes not a winger, yet hes been asked to play there. i think he did well for a position he clearly is uncomfortable with. simple solution is, switch him inside. he plays well inside but the winger situation just makes him look awful

4) why isnt lawro playing? on the radio they said lawro himself said hes injured. if thats the case, whys he even on the bench? i bet anyone 20 quid he plays both ireland matches

5) the negative substitutes. now i know he replaced striker for striker which leaves us with the same formation, but with both wolves and hull, he replaced a good combination of strikers (beats and fuller) for a combination that dont know how play together (tuncay and sidibe/kitson). also, against everton, he brought on whelan, whereas moyes bought on two extra strikers. the only other sub pulis made was kitson on 91mins which is too late to do anything. why not bring him and tuncay on at 80mins to go on and try win the game instead of settling for a draw!

6) as i just stated and someone else has above, we seem to either go ahead and defend a one nil lead or they equalise and defend a draw. why not go for the kill? get 2 or 3 nil leads then defend them when we got a comfort zone. and when we are drawing, we have to go get the three points against sides like bham, wolves, hull. take a gamble. one point feels like none against these teams

7) someone said above, we only play for 70mins. is it a coincedence that is when subs are usually made? offically we have never scored after 60mins all season yet. also, we have only scored one goal from open play all season. when its been two its been courtesy of a penalty or an own goal

8) lastly, id like a few peoples comments on my team selections in my blog. i wrote it an hour before the game. maybe i was foolish thinking pulis would read it. heres the link.... http://www.whydelilah.co.uk/blog/hainus/08_nov_2009/if-i-was-manager.htm...

couldn't agree more mike .....picked the same team in the post above yours

I think everyones in agreement with the best team...Everyone except TP that is.

If we don't pick up a win in the next 2 games then i can see TP coming under some serious pressure. We've already missed out on 2 wins that we should have got against Wolves and Hull. If we lose to Portsmouth and Blackburn (followed by Arsenal) then we could find ourselves near the bottom of the table.

I think Tuncay is the answer to Stoke's new era....but only TP need gut to sort thinks out....before it's too late....

My only comment - Mr Pulis has no idea how to play an attacking side.
Dare I suggest a call is made for his resignation BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
The writings on the wall - one more loss and wins for the likes of Hull and Porstmouth and were only two points above the relegation zone.
Please. Mr Coates, do something quickly or your investment will have been wasted.

tony is a brilliant down to earth manager - i do think he has made a few dubious decisions though - but patience is needed - he's built up a great squad - he needs time to get the mix right - each game is different

it would be VERY SHALLOW to talk about putting tony under pressure in his job - he's the best manager at stoke since waddington - LOYALTY