Well…..I’m not sure what to say about that really? Out-thought, out-muscled and outclassed, and if reports are to be believed that was just between two of our own players as yet another bust up was worryingly leaked to the nationals.

Kalou celebrates as his two footed lunge hospitalises Sorensen.. ©GettyImages

Pulis has long since spoken about the Second Season Syndrome and how this year has been much more of a challenge as a Manager, you get the feeling he wasn’t talking about the opposition working us out or having to change our game, rather he was making reference to a number of behind the scenes issues that have crept in of late from a number of ‘professionals’ who should know better.

It’s hard to try and make sense of it all to be honest, it all started with Beattie and ‘Towelgate’ and my personal opinion is that was the start of the main issues with regards to disruption within the ranks. Beattie, along with his loyal sidekick Lawrence, you sense, are at the hub of the dressing room and the manner in which events transpired to be reported as well as Lawrence’s swift removal from the team on that occasion perhaps point to this incident as being pivotal to the behaviours we are seeing and reading about now.

A big talking point recently has been about petulance, mainly from Tuncay who has stormed off down the tunnel on no fewer than 3 occasions this season alone. This ‘Disease’, as Pulis refers to it, was continued by Kitson on Saturday, and it wasn’t his first time either. Is this what you get with talent? hissy fits and self importance? These kind of things weren’t apparent with a team of Championship tryers so why is it so prevalent with the introduction of supposed ‘class’?

Both players, it seems, appear to be under the impression they should be more important than they are, both would be wrong in that assumption. Kitson, has had more comebacks than Sinatra since his ill fated move to the Potteries and has never shown the eagerness to play for a team, often ostracising himself from the group, such groups he has criticised publicly in the past. Tuncay on the other hand has a bit more credit owing to his Champions league Hat Trick against Man Utd, only it seems he has been dining on that for years now with his only success in this country being a team building their side around him…that team were duly relegated. His time at Stoke has been littered with unrealistic expectation mixed with a hint of the inability to deliver and a huge dollop of petulance and finally the Potteries faithful have lost their patience with both the mercurial Turk and the flame haired comeback king and it’s time for both to go.

These two are only a part of the wider depressing picture as the latest bust up was again so freely and willingly leaked to the press, there are some bruised egos in that dressing room and they seem intent on humiliating the Manager and destroying that which he holds so dear, his team spirit. The latest alleged spat reports that Whelan confronted his Captain Faye about the manner in which he was preparing for such an important game, the Senegalese apparently warming up in flip flops – this coupled with his early withdrawal with a pulled muscle clearly angered the fiery Irishman and if reports are to be believed they both had to be pulled apart….twice.

I can only go with what has been reported elsewhere but if this is true then I applaud Whelan for speaking his mind, I’m not sure if this is a recurring theme from last year’s Player of the Season, but he has pulled out of a lot of games in the first 20 mins or so this season and if his attitude and preparation is to blame then I’m glad he was rightly called up on it, though I’m disappointed it was Whelan and not the Manager who did so.

Pulis has got a big problem at the moment and I foresee a mass clearout in the Summer and would expect a lot of fringe players as well as a handful of the first team squad to be shown the door. Messrs Tuncay, Beattie, Kitson etc. should be shipped out and shipped out quickly. No player is bigger than the club, I don’t care who he is, the level of disrespect that individuals are showing the Manager, their team mates and their supporters is nothing short of disgraceful. It makes me sad to think that this is the price of success and this season’s tales of unrest have perhaps brought me back down to Earth and made me question what it is I actually like about the top flight. I can tell you now, it’s not the huge gulf in class and wealth, it’s, it’s not the fact that had it been Fuller and not Kalou who was subject to two big decisions we would have seen a Red Card and booking for diving and it’s certainly not the overpaid ego maniacs whose name we pay to have on the back of our shirts.

I’m pretty disillusioned at the moment with it all to be honest, I feel so angry that professional footballers are showing such disrespect to my club, that there doesn’t seem to be any concern for their own careers such is the beast that the Premier League has become, it’s their safety net, it seems that behaviour is rewarded and not condemned. A lot of fans had an awful day out and many more blazing rows with their other halves and perhaps even a few bruised cats but that won’t bother the ‘diseased’ as they drive home in their supercars oblivious to the tradition and values they have the responsibility to respect and uphold and right now I don’t have a lot of hope for things ever being the way they used to be but maybe that’s the price you pay when you arrive in the promised land of the Premier League?