EXCLUSIVE: I must have complete control of players says Iron man Pulis

16 January 2010 01:44
The cap fits: Stoke City manager Tony Pulis[LNB] Tony Pulis was in his car when he got the phone call from Stoke's owner that cemented his ideas on how a manager should have the right to manage.[LNB] 'It was the main man ringing from Iceland,' he recalls. 'We had two players that he'd brought over and he wanted to know why they weren't in the team. I said, "Listen, it's because they're not good enough".[LNB] 'He started telling me how they were good enough, how one of them had scored 40 goals in 10 games for the Dog and Duck in Iceland, about how I wasn't giving them a fair chance. And I was trying to explain how every club in the world has a top scorer, but it doesn't mean he's good enough to play a level higher.[LNB] 'In the end he just said, "If they're not in the team on Saturday, then I can't guarantee your job". I just told him that's fine and to do what he had to do.[LNB] 'It had never happened before and it never has since - so blatant with an owner telling me how to pick a team or you lose your job. We were in the top six and come Saturday I didn't play them and from that moment onwards the silver bullet was on its way.'[LNB] The story comes from 2005, a different era under a very different owner, but Pulis, now in his second spell as Stoke boss, tells it to underline how the support he gets from current chairman Peter Coates is the key to all his club have achieved.[LNB] Stoke play Liverpool today and there is only one man picking their team. It's the one who'll be on the touchline wearing his trademark baseball cap. Only one man has signed all the players, too, since bookmaking boss Coates bought the club in June 2006 and put Pulis in charge. It wasn't a gamble.[LNB] Pulis adds: 'I saw stuff in the summer that Rafa Benitez was trying to make sure he had control of transfers at Liverpool. I don't know if people were picking his players, but for a manager of his quality to have people telling him who to have - how can that be right?[LNB] 'That doesn't happen at Stoke. I'd rather work on my own judgment.'[LNB] Pulis has found players others didn't know or didn't fancy and made every one of them better. Take Ryan Shawcross, a centre half being talked about as the answer for England in the absence of Rio Ferdinand. He might have been the answer for Manchester United, too, had Pulis not spirited him away.[LNB] 'I saw him play twice for United's third team, not even their reserves, in two pre-season games and I just liked him,' says Pulis. 'He was big, had good quality and was quick enough. He looked a bit like Bambi at times but I thought "We can make a player". I spoke to Alex and we did a deal.'[LNB] Then there's Matthew Etherington, a gifted winger but not known for his work rate at West Ham. At the Britannia he'll tackle back as often as he runs forward. [LNB]'I just think that's the ethic within the group. We talk all the time about what we have to do as a group, not as individuals, to be successful.[LNB] 'It doesn't always work. We've had one or two who thought, "I'm better than the rest and I'm not running when I haven't got the ball". I'm not saying they are bad people, but if they are not right for the club you try your best to get them out.'[LNB]Which brings us back to the manager being free to run the club - and to that infamous pre-Christmas bust-up with James Beattie at Arsenal over the duration of the players' party.[LNB] 'I won't discuss that,' he snaps. 'It's over and James is a part of my squad again and that's how I want to keep it. What I will say is that it's important there's one singer and one song in a dressing room. And that comes from the manager.'[LNB] It's an old fashioned idea, but then it's an old fashioned club. As we walk through the stadium, Pulis stops at every office door for some banter with the staff who sell the tickets, run the shop or do the accounts.[LNB] He adds: 'There are probably much better managers than me in the lower divisions with tiny budgets and it annoys me nobody gives them credit. Sometimes a guy who's kept a club in 16th place in League One has achieved far more.'[LNB] Management began for Pulis at Bournemouth in 1991. That was where he started wearing the cap. 'It happened one day because it was sunny. We won so I wore it again. Just a superstition. Then at Gillingham we did so well, you just keep wearing it.[LNB] 'It's come in handy now I've got no hair left!' [LNB] [LNB]  

Source: Daily_Mail