by Chris Tobin
Tony Pulis, Stoke City manager and all-round football aficionado finds himself surprisingly as some sort of “Football” authority this morning; a protector of rules and fair play, a beacon for all in the war on diving. Two weeks ago Pulis was unhappy with Chelsea and in particular players going to ground with the ease of a sack of potatoes being placed on the floor from a height.
This week he would turn his attention to Luis Suarez as the Liverpool and Uruguay front man would once again find himself charged by media and football fans with diving. It is a charge that sticks like glue and not just with those outside the hallowed grounds of Anfield, remembering always that Liverpool fans are ultimately football fans, indeed custodians of “The beautiful game”; the intelligent ones, those not blinded by tribalism and Fergie-style indignation at anything seen as a personal slur on themselves or their club.
Luis Suarez is a fantastic footballer and a great showman. However, he lets not only himself down he also lets down those fans and supporters who seem to constantly find themselves having to defend their hero, at times in the face of what would seem to those outside of Liverpool Football Club, indefensible. What Suarez needs to understand and perhaps appreciate is his standing amongst pundits, media and opposing supporters. It is “Public enemy number 1” and some will not be content until he is driven out of the English game and banished from these shores. They have indeed said as much.
Let us for a moment return to Mr Pulis and his Stoke team. Against Chelsea both Branislav Ivanovic and Oscar were guilty of equally poor diving on a par with this latest Suarez dive; the difference is the approach from the British media. Match of The Day had an approach of laughter and nothing was discussed by its pundits, the Pulis interview where he stated his anger and how they should be banned was not even aired, and as for the press the following day – nothing. Yes that’s correct, not one mention let alone a back page spread with the headline “BANNED” or “DIVER”. A quite different approach then when it is Luis Suarez.
Let me give my unbiased opinion. Ban them, ban them all and not only that if it is found that a player has indeed managed to con a referee, then those points must be deducted from the cheating team. It would soon stop. I can only really deal with Suarez as he is my team’s player, a player who has probably cost us four goals this season where he has been fouled for stonewall penalties, where his reputation has gone before him. Say what you want but he has rightfully earned that reputation with his previous antics of the Tom Daley variety. Referees have cheated him and the club on those grounds.
If we are to in some way deal with the problem of diving – a subsidiary of cheating – we must also look at those paragons of sporting fair play and all round pub team Stoke City and indeed the self- styled protector of “The Beautiful Game” Tony Pulis.
A self-deflector of expert proportions Pulis is a man who perhaps should be looking toward his own team’s thuggery and what some would describe as cheating behaviour. Robert Huth’s display against Suarez was the worst case of cheating and rule breaking that has been seen on a football field in a long time. Tony Pulis should take a long hard look at his own player’s behaviour and his team’s approach before trying to confront the issues of diving. Suarez’ dive is inexcusable, however, if a player is constantly being dragged to ground, stamped upon, thrown around, kneed in the back and the perpetrator of such thuggish behaviour is not held accountable by referees – what is then expected in response to such little protection? Players are awaiting the next act of foul play with a knowledge that over reaction may well be the only chance of bringing this to a blatantly under-performing official’s attention.
You can imagine Stoke players going out with the intention of stopping such gifted players from indeed playing, led from the top from coaches and manager with a philosophy built around destruction and flagrant abuse of the rules. So is one cheating moment worse than 20 or 30 cheating moments? Defenders are seen as clever – “ He knew he had to stop him” – was a line used when Stokes Dean Whitehead chopped through Raheem Sterling. Should this type of behaviour be also banned Mr Pulis or indeed is it accepted because of the honesty in its brutality?
What type of manager is Tony Pulis when constantly we are told what a wonderful job he has done and continues to do at Stoke City – a falsehood in itself when you compare the resources he has had at his disposal over recent seasons. His ability to deflect attention away from his own record as a manager reminds me similarly of Sam Allardyce – both self-promoters with little substance when challenged or their actual records scrutinised and add to that list the latest amongst this type of manager – Alan Pardew, but I digress.
Over the last five seasons Stoke City and Pulis are the 3rd highest net spenders per season in the Premier League. Yes that’s correct with no fudging of data or figures. They are 3rd. More than Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham or Arsenal. So what have Stoke fans got for such spending? A side akin to a Sunday league park side, but this is “The Stoke way” and this band of supporters are compelled to defend such dross in the realisation of staying afloat in the Premier League whilst other mediocre mid-table clubs have fallen by the way side.
One only has to look at the Premier League Fair Play leagues from previous seasons to see the disparity from Pulis’ comments on cheating and his teams very own approach to this matter. Foul play, rule breaking, cheating whatever words you choose to use to describe what is known as; not being fair – Stoke City and Tony Pulis are always at the bottom or toward the bottom in this league. Indeed they’ve finished bottom of the pile three times in 6 years. Hardly filling the consumer with confidence that Stoke will give you an honest battle for your hard earned when having to watch them as an opposing team.
Tony Pulis quotes on Suarez –
“You have got Suarez falling over in the box second half, which was really, really disappointing,” Pulis said.
“I think that should be highlighted, as I have said before. I’ve been on about and banging the drum about people who fall over and in one incident in the second half, it’s an embarrassment.”
“The FA should be looking at this. Give him three games (of suspension) and he will stop falling over.”
He has also said in the past when Robert Huth was sent off at Sunderland last season – a decision he disagreed with suggesting again that David Meyler had simulated or dived in the incident that saw Huth get his red card –
“I think it is something we seriously have to look at. For me, when players do that, it is cheating another professional and they are all part of the same union”
I think Pulis is missing a very delicate point here, as a striker or attacker if you are aware that a defender is constantly going through the back of you or just constantly fouling you, what you do if you are clever, you await the next challenge coming your way. When lumps of wood like Huth attempt to intimidate you with strong challenges, and just before you get clattered one more time from him you jump out of the way to enhance the fact you have been fouled. However, if the defender does not go through with his intended thuggish behaviour – tough it’s still his intent that has him in trouble. If you don’t want this to happen Mr Pulis then ask your player to stop crashing through fellow professional’s intent on doing them damage and in return they may stop jumping out of the way, and your player being booked or ultimately sent off.
Interestingly he has no opinion on a fellow union member blatantly stamping on the chest of another member of such union, in the process leaving stud marks showing on that player’s stomach.
My overall advice for Tony Pulis and Stoke City supporters is this – If you live in a glass house don’t throw too many stones as there is a possibility you may break a window.
You can find me on Twitter https://twitter.com/christobinsings
Yet another university drop out using his half gained degree to write a biased account towards his own team.
If Liverpool supporters such as yourself were more content with the current (and when I say current, I’m obviously talking about the last decade) misfiring of your mediocre Liverpool gods rather than procrastinating towards your hatred of Stoke City (and any other team which takes points of Liverpool for that matter-apologies for the digression), then maybe someone of your obvious importance to Liverpool FC could help stop the rot at ‘Fortress’ Anfield.
I am a Stoke City supporter, and much the same as the rest of our faithful, we simply don’t care what people think of our team. We don’t care how we stay in the league, we’re just enjoying ourselves. This is an attitude which I personally think Liverpool supportes should try adapting to, because all those league titles, European triumphs and domestic honours of yesteryear, unfortunately for you, will not keep you in the Premier League if your total footballers continue to drop points at home to average, mediocre, under par teams like Stoke City. Liverpool Football Club is just a name, stop hiding behind it.
We know you don’t care otherwise you wouldn’t put up with pulis,as he has spent the 3rd most in the premier & with that money for your team,you wold think he could manage better football instead of sending thugs on the pitch to injure the opposition,more akin to rugby
Yet we are still debt free!
Again though, you seriously think that Pulis’s tactics are to injure your players?
You’re enjoying yourself? You enjoy watching this sort of football?? Did you know that since the summer of 2008 Stoke have average 20mil net spend per season? You should be competing for the top 6 with that type of outlay! Instead you’ve got a team that are a disgrace to football and you are wallowing in mediocrity. A good manager would have built a football team with the money Pulis has spent and you might have something to be proud of. You might have actually won something!! Instead, you’re a laughing stock.
Is this the same Liverpool who have £35 million on a flop who they sent out on loan? The same Liverpool who spent nearly £40 million on two flops, who are both bench warmers? The same Liverpool who have only won 2 matches at home this calendar year? The same Liverpool who have pretty much the most overrated manager in the PL?
And you call us a laughing stock? Ehehehe.
Opening on an ad hominem, classy.
As for the past decade you refer to, a European Cup, an FA Cup, a European Cup final, a 2nd place finish and a League Cup suggest it’s not actually been too poor a decade really.
As for only complaining about Stoke because they take points off of us is to completely miss the point, we’ve been so poor the past few seasons practically everyone has taken points, Wigan probably the most consistently. I take my hat off to them though as they beat us with ability. There is no excitement or enjoyment to be taken from watching Stoke every time it’s the same, systematic clamping down on skill through brutality. There’s a massive difference between the art of being a good defensive side and being a cynical side, I generally get some enjoyment out of games win or lose but when Stoke roll around it’s the same every time.
Ps I also find it quite amusing that you care so little ‘like most of [your] faithful’ that you feel you need to insult the writer of the piece, and lecture the opposing teams fans.
Are you always this boring or do you take lessons in it?
All I read is “blah, blah, please sir nasty man hurt me, pink tu-tu, tick, winge, blart, hissy scream, arm chair fan, make football sterile”.
By the way, I notice your net spend figure doesn’t take into account the fact that we were starting from scratch after 23 years of spending nothing.
I’m sure you took that into account when you researched your “article”.
So the fact that you started from scratch (NOT true at all) means that it’s ok to spend 80mil plus and have THIS team to show for it!!!
Yet another boring ‘Arent Stoke awful’ blog using the usual dul template.
F- Must try harder
Pathetic article from another pussy who’d rather watch horseface cheat and dive every week than watch football played by proper men who give their all week in week out.GROW A PARIR you waste of space.
When men where men & sheep where nervous haha,its 2012 not 1970,the game has moved on to being a game of skill,we had our Tommy Smiths at the time,you lot never moved on your stuck in the past,lump it & kick the opposition
Nice spelling you thick hub cap stealing scally, it were dumbass.
Last time I checked, persistent fouling and stamping on the opposition are bookable offences, wouldn’t you Stoke lads agree?, similarly handling the ball (twice) to gain an advantage, would you regard that as cheating?
Plus numerous brutal injuries suffered at the hands of your “football” (AHEM) team, wouldn’t that be cheating or foul play?
So I think we can forgive one dive after being kicked from pillar to post for the duration of a so called football match, if you can’t get a foul by playing within the rules, then you might as well try a dive, he had nothing to lose.
So if you enjoy watching shithouses like Wilkinson, Huth and Shawcross go out intent on ending careers, and listening to a “manager” waah waah waah about “diving” when he shower of shite kick lumps out of the opposition, then that’s up to you.
I’d call you idiots, but then that would probably be giving you too much credit.
I agree with your first point but you have then gone onto completely undermine yourself by suggesting our players set out to end careers.
Seriously?……….. you think that?
We all know the incident that comes to mind (Ramsey). There aren’t any other ‘brutal’ injuries that have taken place because of stoke players, not many normal injuries for that matter.
The reason Suarez is being highlighted is because this isn’t his first dive. Would you agree?
Stoke get highlighted for our ruff style by the media and sometimes unfairly judged, pre games included.
Everyone seems to act high and mighty in there comments then insult an entire fan base.
Chris makes it very plain in his article that he in no way condones Luis Suarez diving. I endorse that view and have been saying all week that Luis is harming LFC by his over reacting to touches in the box.
However there is no excuse for the thuggish anti football tactics that Pulis gets his team to use. If Stoke cannot learn to play football with all the money they have spent then perhaps they should sod off to the championship.
Stoke Fans getting all pissy. EVERY point in this article is spot on. Your team play anti-football. The opposite of football. You should be banned from every league in the world until you learn how to play the game. Piss off back to your rotten little town and take your half bred mutant fan base with you. Your fans and players look like they were grown in test tubes.
Says the man from the gun haven of liverscum.
To be honest Chris I think you might have been too soft on that horrible alehouse team, their fans seem to be incredibly proud of their inability to play football. This we don’t care attitude only confirms my suspicions about the hypocrisy of their manager. The dive by Suarez was embarrassing but not as embarrassing as some of the replies you have had on here, to put it simply you wouldn’t be arrested for diving in the street but you would for stamping on someone’s chest!
Not one comment from a Stoke fan that actually addresses the article. One even says “I am a Stoke City supporter, and much the same as the rest of our faithful, we simply don’t care what people think of our team. We don’t care how we stay in the league”, so diving is cheating but intentionally stamping on someone is ok, just part of a man’s game, do you know how embarrassing that kind of opinion is lol, and with an attitude like that why would anyone take your opinion seriously, why would anyone care what you have to say. Typical reaction I would expect from uneducated folks who don’t know how to discuss a pertinent point. Yes I am a Liverpool fan, but one thing we all agree on is there should be no room for cheating, whether it be diving, pulling shirts, pressuring refs oh and intentionally going out to inflict injury on another player. It is not the allegation that Suarez dives that upset’s us, it’s the fact that he is SINGLED out constantly, where is the media frenzy surrounding Bale’s blatant dive or Van Persies elbow, or for that matter Huth’s stamp.
The articles depiction of stoke is hugely biased.
The media did pick on Huth’s stamp and it was widely talked about. apart from maybe a main article on the bbc website, although they did cover the subject on their twitter section.
to assume the entire stoke support is uneducated is……..well silly.
I suggest you reread what I wrote, nowhere do I say All Stoke fans are uneducated, only those that make silly and worthless comments that aren’t pertinent to the points raised in the article, your misreading and misrepresentation only reinforces my point.
“You should be banned from every league in the world until you learn how to play the game.” Hahaha. You cannot honestly be serious with an incomprehensibly moronic statement like that.
if we are a yesteryear team now why does todays stoke play like they have shit their pants before they get on the pitch. if we are that average/bad why not attempt to play a game of football. you know where you actually employ an idea thats leads to creating goalscoring chances rather then putting 11 men behind the ball and hoping for a mistake at the other end. if you people are happy to aspire to footballs version of an episode of crossroads whilst paying for the pleasure then you are welcome to sit in midtable and win zip for eternity. whatever the history of my club be it great or otherwise i am far happier in the knowledge that we are least trying to do things in a manner that at least entertaining as opposed to that pile of crap that pulis forces you to endure week in week out.
Sundays game i don’t condone. However we do play in a league were an individual on a team one game out of ten+ might produce a bad tackle or a moment were fans will be embarrassed. I don’t have to look far for an example, David Luiz on Walters last weekend.
I would also claim that our attack did not link up well throughout the game except in the opening stages whilst Glenn Whelan was on the field. We don’t play our best every week. But to assume that we set out to play that way after a weeks training is a mistake on your part.
I think you know the routine responses for your attack on Pulis at the end of your message.
Brought us up from the championship
established premier team (don’t be silly and belittle that)
FA cup Final
Europa League
He has also developed our style quite considerably since promotion, we no longer rely on Delap and Fuller. We are however currently in the midst of a change in style and i’ll admit that Sunday it didn’t work as intended.
Spot on mate , Luis needs to stop it as it’s costing us points .. as for Stoke at least they keep the oppositions physio’s busy 🙂
Pulis should be brought up before a court of law for crimes to football. Suarez dive was a joke but to be fair he got the life kicked out of him all match and has already had a load of stonewall pens turned down cause of the bullying of the English media against him I don’t remember such fuss being made about Welbeck a few weeks ago
Nailed it again chris and you managed to upset the knuckle draggers!you,d enjoy yourself aswell if you got away from Stoke every other week.imagine having to live in Stoke AND follow that neanderthal team? I actually feel a bit sorry for them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19891034
Nothing like a bit of stereotyping eh lads? Here is a question for you. Which premiership teams got more disiplinary cards than Stoke last season? What’s that ? Liverpool you say, and Arsenal and and and and ……
The supporters of teams who by most of their own supporters admission do ‘anything to stay in the Premier League’ are at best misguided and at worst fools.
Why would you want to pay your money to watch these average players play a version of the game you can find all the way from semi-pro level upwards. Surely you want to see the best football they can offer, not remain the eternal bridesmaids.
Ah football snobbery at it finest, I bet you’ve chosen Liverpool because they are in the mix for the title haven’t you (and not because they are your local team). It would be a very small league if you didn’t have your so called lesser clubs. Pathetic, sky sports generation opinions.
Firstly to be a cheat surely you have to cheat your opponent out of something (penalty) and seeing as luis is awful at diving he never wins a penalty. When was the last time luis took a dive and won a penalty? Therefore he would like to cheat but is shite at it.
Let’s be honest, the writer of this article only talks about the pathetic diving of Suarez, and goes on to say how he doesn’t condone it so that he isn’t writing a 100% biased article, just a 95% one. It is very clever because it allows him to distract away from the subject of the controversy this weekend; that being the fact that Suarez is a blatant cheat.
One of the comments on here says that crowding the referee is wrong, Liverpool do it regularly. One talks about yellow/red cards, Liverpool had more than us last season. One talks about the outlay on transfers Stoke have made. We have spent a lot, but our record signing is £10m, the other large amount has been spent on players costing between £2m and £5m. What you fail to see from your blissful Liverpool homes, is that only a handful of those remain at the club, and we have sold them to recoup some of the transfer money.
Liverpool fans have turned into pansies of arsenal FC proportions.
I am a stoke fan and I think this article is ok, it is fairly biased too though, which is fair enough. Im sure that if I wrote a blog it would unintentionally be biased toward stoke, after all they are the team that I have followed all my life. Il be totally honest, and Im sure most stoke fans will agree with me, there were times last season, (after the highs of reaching the FA Cup final) that pulis’ style was destroying my soul and want to actually go to the britannia stadium on a saturday afternoon. My only highlights of last season were my two away trips to europe. The season we got to the FA Cup final we played expansive direct football, we would hit the wings get the crosses in and we reeped the rewards for it. For me personally, I love wingers, so that season, when pennant and etherington were on fire it was fantastic.
Last season was so hard to watch, we seemed to lack passion, the europa league and a pulis pennant falling out meant that we had to watch a youth player (ryan shotton) who used to be a centre half play full back, on the wing and even up front. It also meant we had to give rory delap, bless his little cotton towel, way more games than wed have previously anticipated. His legs, and back, really are gone!
This season though, due to the signings of nzonzi, adam and g cameron. We look a whole different team. We have been playing more attractive passing football and we have been dominating teams in midfield. I believe we did this for the first 20 minutes at anfield on sunday. Now we have already been tarnished with this brush though we will always hear about big bad stoke. I am not condoning what Huth did on sunday but he did come out and say he didnt mean it. Im not sure how much I believe that, because if i honest, if I had a player who I was playing against trying to deceive the referee the whole time, Id probably give him what for if I knew id get away with it.
Now on to Liverpool (if you can be bothered to read anymore) I believe brendan rogers could well be the man for you if he gets the time he needs and IF and this is a big IF he realises that he needs his team to be able adapt to the teams he plays against. I remember the liverpool under rafa benitez and they could play in numerous different styles and I think thats why you were successful. You only have to look at arsenal and realise that playing one way and one way only is not the right way to win titles.
One more thing. I believe the point about our spending is very rich coming from the club who have repetitively spent big money on almost unproven players in the last few transfer windows. I you lot might be a little bitter you lot are the laughing stock of europe for your spending