Stoke put in another poor performance as they ‘built’ on the frustration of the Fulham game just two weeks earlier. The side seems to have regressed back to the long ball game and with a questionable team selection and the sale of Tuncay still fresh in their minds, most Stokies walked out of Anfield angry and bewildered

Game Over...©PA Photos

I’ve been going through a myriad of emotions these last few weeks, the Fulham game was the low of the season and the club's utter inability in the transfer market to address the problem areas of left back and centre midfield coupled with the sale of fans favourite Tuncay had me pulling my hair out. There was even less of it left then as the teams were read out at Anfield, the name of Diao met with groans and the idea of a lone target man had the heads shaking even further.

Liverpool have had some good results of late but the fact remains that we dominated them at the Britannia, in the best performance I have seen since our return to the top flight. It seemed, once again, that Pulis picked a team to play the badge of Liverpool and not the current team who are far from world beaters at present despite what the media would have you believe. We don’t change formation much, in fact one other game sticks out where we did this, Chelsea away, no-one knew what they were doing, the forwards were isolated and it was only once we reverted to 442 that we got into the game. We fared a little better this time and actually played some half decent football on the ground, but this could have been done with a 442 formation and whilst we kept Liverpool out for 45 minutes we barely got into their half and Carew was 40 yards ahead of his midfield for most of the game, it was painful.

I’m getting frustrated at us parking the bus, Kenny even changed his team around to accommodate the aerial bombardment by playing 3 centre halves, this was the perfect opportunity to use 2 wingers to stretch the back 3 given the wing backs being further up field. Alas we didn’t take advantage and despite a commendable effort up front by Carew we only had 1 shot on target all game, and once the team went one nil down the game was over as we were never going to attempt to get forward.

This brings me onto my main frustration at the moment, I was upset that Tuncay was sold, I was even moiré upset he wasn’t replaced and I was fuming to hear Pulis justify being able to cover his absence with the return of Mama. We seem to have visibly regressed, earlier in the season we started to play a much more expansive game with two wingers home and away, something previously unheard of, and it served us very well. In the last few weeks though we have seen a most unwelcome return to the long ball of old and hanging out the likes of Delap on the right to dry. I won’t go into how that affects the shape of the team as I’ve done it to death in the last couple of pieces, the bottom line is it renders us useless going forward and I fear it is down to Wilson being accommodated.

This happens every now and then with Pulis, he starts to get a bit heady and reverts to type, though just as often, normally after a bad run, he stumbles back to the team that 90% of people watching thinks he should play. I hope I’m overreacting and Pulis' selection was solely based on the fact we had 3 games in a week and he is targeting Sunderland as the 3pts he wants but if we don’t get that win then he has wasted the opportunity to get something at Anfield for nothing.

We all know what team should be played and that is Begovic in goal, Wilko at right back, Ryan and Rob in the middle, Higgy on the left, Matty and Pennant out wide and Rory and Deano in the middle. Up front I think that Carew will be a great signing and I’m happy for him to play with either KJ or Fuller, though would love to see him start alongside the latter, though Ric will be at his uncle’s funeral and knowing Pulis penchant for playing players against their old clubs it’s nailed on that KJ will start. I don’t have a problem with two target men up front as long as we play both of our wingers which I hope and pray we do on Saturday.

I was pretty depressed this week with everything that had gone on but for some stupid reason I have a cautious optimism that he will pick the right side and go for the win on Saturday, if he doesn’t I fear there will be a reaction from the fans which will make Pulis even more stubborn to prove a point which could spell trouble for us at this the business end of the season.

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