The Stoke City Topic Thread: Relegation? Staying up? Manager? Empty seats

[Houston Valiant]

Hopefully they will be down by the time they play Palace at home. Then , next season’s first fixture will be Shrewsbury away.

[CambridgeDon]

Got less issue with the longstanding fans who've been there for a while, and more issues with the 13,000 who came out of the woodwork in 2008 and have only known away days at Old Trafford and Anfield, free away travel, and million pound internationals.

 

Also didn't like the 'we break legs, we're hard' attitude of the Pulis team, the anti-football they weirdly got turned on by playing, the 'the whole league is out to get us mentality', the booing of Ramsey, the comments by their fans that we're 'never satisfied' (despite them themselves violently storming the boardroom of their current chairman in his first spell), their ground personifying 'soulless, plastic, industrial estate new build', the fact they're funded by a betting company, and maybe the inherent jealousy and bitterness thats consumed me for the past decade as my mates saunter off to Wembley and we have to protest to keep our club in existence. Can't wait to see the 'Prem generation' of fans' face when they realise they're finishing 14th in the Championship and losing away at Barnsley, as Shaqiri bags a hattrick for Arsenal and Butland starts for England.

 

Its been a rough decade.

 

Some of those same supporters still can't forget the Ramsey incident, which is a stain on the club. Today, apparently, they were chanting "Aaron Ramsey, he walks with a limp". For that alone, they deserve consignment to the lower leagues of the football world (I'm thinking North West Counties) for a long time.

[Hagrid]

Some of those same supporters still can't forget the Ramsey incident, which is a stain on the club. Today, apparently, they were chanting "Aaron Ramsey, he walks with a limp". For that alone, they deserve consignment to the lower leagues of the football world (I'm thinking North West Counties) for a long time.

 

I've heard many defences in my time.

 

My two favourites are "he refused to accept Shawcross' apology in hospital" (like this was some *** for tat in the playground), and "his leg was already broken before Shawcross tackled him".

 

How do you even respond to stuff like that?

 

Literally if a Stoke fan can explain why they still boo a player who's leg one of their players broke, around 5 years ago, I'm all ears.

[RailwayRowdy]

The open trap door widened even further for The Prize Bully’s following yesterday’s predictable home defeat to Spurs. Now a MUST win next week at West Ham. Be nice to see Arnie turn it on and all but relegate his former employer’s.

[For Us All]

Lambert's still in denial and thinks Sjoke were brilliant once again?

[man in the pub]

Lambert's still in denial and thinks Sjoke were brilliant once again?

 

Are you sure that's what he said.

[RailwayRowdy]

Saints take lead at Arsenal ! If it stays like this, the final stoke relegation nail is about to be hammered home ! Come on Saints !

[NellyTheValiant]

That didn't last long.

[For Us All]

Are you sure that's what he said.

 

You are right,he didn't say they were brilliant,that must have been last week against Arsenal.Yesterday,he just said they were outstanding.

[davehartshill]

Reading the Oatcake and I cannot believe they’ve got the nerve to criticise the way their club is being run and Coates for “not fundiing any good players”.

 

Unbelievable, really when their rivals down the D road have had 20 years or more of absolute ownership ridiculousness, board room chaos, a slump to the bottom 6 of the entire Football League pyramid and consistent under funding.

 

It’s really pissed me off that they can even dare to moan when they’ve had a decade of amazing and unbelievable times.

[Santa]

Coates has put in enough money, in the medium to long term anyway. A lot of it was wasted stockpiling defensive minded players and unremarkable ones at that. Meanwhile at the other enStoke's goal threat was thin even before Arnautovic left (a player who weighed in with some important game changing goals) and has been non-existent ever since. Shaqiri gets the crowd going when he turns up but he isn't good enough, often enough. There aren't a lot of forward options and too many of those can be at best described as squad players.

 

Coates has paid a price for backing Hughes long after things went stale. How many times did we get told that Stoke were a stable club and Coates wasn't the sort of owner to sack a manager on a whim. By trying too hard to do the right thing he ended up doing the wrong thing. When Stoke lost at Coventry sacking Hughes wasn't even a decision any more, and by that time a lot of the better out of work managers had come and gone.

[SourceOfTheTrent]

Stoke have had it because they didn't get rid of Hughes at the end of last season, the writing was on the wall in 10ft high letters. I told my Lardie mates they'd go down if they kept Hughes, I wish I'd put some money on it.

Hughes did to them what Brown did to us only on a much grander scale and he has a track record of it whereas at least Brown was an unknown and it was more difficult to predict. Fundamentally they both assembled dreadfully imbalanced squads and also brought in too many players that aren't good enough. Hughes wasted a fortune found it too, his three flagship signings of Berahino-goals, Wimmer-frame and Dim-bula were all utter drivel yet cost a combined total of about £36m plus huge wages. If Vale signed those three only Imbula would look any good, I honestly think the other two would struggle. £12m for Berahino who had a well publicised record of idiocy and had only one purple patch of scoring (on the pitch), he's no more use than Tyrone 'where's my wage packet' Barnett but has a much bigger wage packet. As for Wimmer, ha ha ha ha, he's a pub player, seriously, and Spurs must have thought it was their birthday when Stoke took him and actually paid for the privilege. I've seen him play a few times and he defends like a lad in a pub side, whatever way he happens to be facing he just boots the ball, either up the field or out for a throw or corner. He isn't much good at winning challenges either. I would honestly be disappointed if Vale signed him, how on earth he's got to play at the level he has amazes me.

The rest of their squad is a mixed bag too, some good players like Allen, Butland, Martins Indi, Shawcross and the evergreen Crouch plus Shaqiri but a lot of substandard also rams too numerous to list. A bit like Brown at Vale Hughes wasn't managed properly from above and was allowed to put together a dreadful squad seemingly unchallenged. Stoke will now pay the price because, like Aspo, Lambert is stuck with a rubbish manager's players and is being asked to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and it's a bit too much to ask in the Premier League because of the quality of opposition teams.

Be interesting to see which players Stoke will be left with next season because the Shaqiris, Allens and Butlands will be off and they'll be left with second rate players on massive wages that no one will take like Wimmer, Berahino, Chupa-Chups Motaeng and Ramadama-ding-dong. This relegation will cost the Coates family a fortune, luckily for them they've got one! I can't see Stoke bouncing straight back the financing required will be huge as it's a rebuild job and I doubt the Coates' will chuck that much money at it.

We'll 've playing them in derbies again in a couple of seasons

[aspin for england]

Stoke have had it because they didn't get rid of Hughes at the end of last season, the writing was on the wall in 10ft high letters. I told my Lardie mates they'd go down if they kept Hughes, I wish I'd put some money on it.

Hughes did to them what Brown did to us only on a much grander scale and he has a track record of it whereas at least Brown was an unknown and it was more difficult to predict. Fundamentally they both assembled dreadfully imbalanced squads and also brought in too many players that aren't good enough. Hughes wasted a fortune found it too, his three flagship signings of Berahino-goals, Wimmer-frame and Dim-bula were all utter drivel yet cost a combined total of about £36m plus huge wages. If Vale signed those three only Imbula would look any good, I honestly think the other two would struggle. £12m for Berahino who had a well publicised record of idiocy and had only one purple patch of scoring (on the pitch), he's no more use than Tyrone 'where's my wage packet' Barnett but has a much bigger wage packet. As for Wimmer, ha ha ha ha, he's a pub player, seriously, and Spurs must have thought it was their birthday when Stoke took him and actually paid for the privilege. I've seen him play a few times and he defends like a lad in a pub side, whatever way he happens to be facing he just boots the ball, either up the field or out for a throw or corner. He isn't much good at winning challenges either. I would honestly be disappointed if Vale signed him, how on earth he's got to play at the level he has amazes me.

The rest of their squad is a mixed bag too, some good players like Allen, Butland, Martins Indi, Shawcross and the evergreen Crouch plus Shaqiri but a lot of substandard also rams too numerous to list. A bit like Brown at Vale Hughes wasn't managed properly from above and was allowed to put together a dreadful squad seemingly unchallenged. Stoke will now pay the price because, like Aspo, Lambert is stuck with a rubbish manager's players and is being asked to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and it's a bit too much to ask in the Premier League because of the quality of opposition teams.

Be interesting to see which players Stoke will be left with next season because the Shaqiris, Allens and Butlands will be off and they'll be left with second rate players on massive wages that no one will take like Wimmer, Berahino, Chupa-Chups Motaeng and Ramadama-ding-dong. This relegation will cost the Coates family a fortune, luckily for them they've got one! I can't see Stoke bouncing straight back the financing required will be huge as it's a rebuild job and I doubt the Coates' will chuck that much money at it.

We'll 've playing them in derbies again in a couple of seasons

If Smurf had sorted his 5 year plan , and invested like he said he would (instead of being a ) we could have been playing them next season.

[SuperValiant1876]

Reading the Oatcake and I cannot believe they’ve got the nerve to criticise the way their club is being run and Coates for “not fundiing any good players”.

 

Unbelievable, really when their rivals down the D road have had 20 years or more of absolute ownership ridiculousness, board room chaos, a slump to the bottom 6 of the entire Football League pyramid and consistent under funding.

 

It’s really pissed me off that they can even dare to moan when they’ve had a decade of amazing and unbelievable times.

 

I can guarantee that it would be exactly the same here.

[For Us All]

If they go down it won't take them long to come back up.They'll get over £100m for being relegated plus parachute payments.Their wage bill last season was £85m so they will have the funding to keep most of the players.The problem will be retaining the likes of Butland,Shaqiri,Allen etc.as already stated but if they offer the wages they can certainly recruit players to get them back up.Lambert also has experience in the Championship.