He improved Stoke year on year. The spine of his team is the spine that Mark Hughes decides to use today. Whelan and Crouch (both Pulis signings) have even been given contract extensions during the last window.
But how much money did he use, and how much money did he waste? I haven't followed Stoke closely enough to know.
Pulis is competent in this league, but playing Lescott as full back, for one example, and a flat 442 no matter what is just nonsense. This in itself is a square peg in a round hole approach which isn't smart. I'm so fed up with such endless nonsense from our head coaches.
Another problem with 442 is that for as long as he has been at the club Morrison has been too light weight for a 442, Yacob too slow in the middle for a 442, Gardner never was good enough really but we signed him anyway because he was cheap and local so let's play him in a 442 and Brunt always was too slow and ponderous for a 442. (Mulumbu with Yacob in the middle of a 442 is not an option because we have zero creativity in that setup.)
So, what do we play, we play 442 - twice. And Villa run rings around us, twice. We play straight into Villa's ONE strength and we play straight into KNOWN PROBLEMS with our players... TWICE within a week.
That is just too stupid for me.
Gah.