Ryan Shawcross reveals pre-match advice from Tony Pulis as Stoke City claimed long-awaited win
Ryan Shawcross took a pre-game call from Tony Pulis to run through getting key defensive messages over quickly as a manager – before guiding Stoke City to their first clean sheet in seven games and a first win in 10.
Shawcross, building his coaching career as under-21s boss, has taken caretaker charge of Stoke’s first team following the exit of Narcis Pelach. He had one day to prepare for a clash with Sunderland at the weekend but wanted to put his stamp on the team’s approach, particularly at the bet365 Stadium.
He saw the team play with more urgency and aggression and finally claim all three points thanks to an injury-time strike from Tom Cannon in front of the Boothen End.
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The 37-year-old former centre-back is now preparing the squad for a New Year’s Day match at Burnley and, when asked what he was learning about being a manager, said: “A lot of sleepless nights! Your time is very precious and everyone wants your time, which you don’t perhaps appreciate when you’re taking the 21s. Everyone wants a little bit of you, everyone wants to ask you a question and everyone wants an answer. To actually focus on the game at times can be quite difficult but the support network of the coaches around you and the staff who I know already is massive.
“Then I loved it. You can never not love a last-minute winner but I was speaking to Alex during the game asking, ‘Is it a good point? Do we need to go for it?’ My mentality is always to go for it and that’s why we put Gally [Sam Gallagher] on. Gally probably wasn’t as effective as he has been in previous games but I think it’s a Man Utd thing, a Sir Alex Ferguson thing, that I’d rather go for it and maybe risk losing than to sit in and lose.”
He added: “You’re a product of your environment and the different types. You can’t get away from how good Tony was defensively so I spoke to him before the game about a few different principles and values, which I believe in and he has the same values. Then there’s Sir Alex Ferguson and Mark Hughes, all these people who I played under and have had a massive influence on me.
“Then you have to realise that we’re at Stoke and we’re a Stoke City team. What do I want that to look like? What do fans want it to look like? Does it align? It felt like it did. With the limited time we had I thought we got them playing a way that was proactive, on the front foot and risky – but with time that would slowly get better and reduce risk because you can move things around and help players understand what you’re asking. But I was pleased how they looked.”
Shawcross started taking his coaching badges when he was in his early 20s and has been building up a little black book of contacts who will be able to help over the next few decades.
“I think that helps,” he said. “I’ve got a number of people who I can consider as mentors, including Alex Morris, James Rowberry who works for the Welsh FA, who I can speak to really regularly. Then I’ve got previous coaches like Warren Joyce, who I had at Royal Antwerp, and Tony Pulis, and you can bounce ideas off them.
“If you’ve lost a few games in a row and you’re not sure if you’re doing the right things you can reaffirm things. Normally with Tony it’s real simple messages and the same with Warren Joyce.”
The key will be how he can relay those messages on to the players.
“You always have to be honest with them,” said Shawcross. “At half-time I didn’t think our wingers were recovering well enough so you have to be blunt and tell them it’s not good enough but you have to speak to them like people and home into that human side and understand what they need.
“Me absolutely ripping Junho’s head off, is that going to help us in the second half? Probably not. Me telling him what I expect and showing him on the video is probably a better way of doing it.
“As early as I am in my coaching career, you learn how you need to deal differently with different personalities. There are some who you might need to go for, there are others who you need to be warmer with and that’s probably something I learned from Tony.”
