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Tony Pulis: The Good, The Bad & The Bitter Aftertaste
West Brom doesn’t even come close to being a rival to Crystal Palace in terms of geographic location, but this won’t stop thousands of palace fans going into Saturday’s game desperately wanting to beat West Brom for no reason other than the fact they are managed by a certain Mr. Tony Pulis.
Palace were in a dire situation when Ian Holloway left the club on the 23rd of October 2013 after admitting that he felt that the club had a better chance of survival with somebody else at the helm, leaving Palace five points adrift at the foot of the table and facing what many labelled ‘an simply impossible task’. There was a few names chucked into the ring for the job but it was Tony Pulis who was repeatedly linked with the job - his track record even before he joined Palace was impressive and everything pointed to him being the person to lift us out of the murky waters of the relegation zone, if indeed it was possible at all. Yet many palace fans even then didn’t want him or his ‘medieval’ style of play anywhere near Selhurst Park but appointed he was… eventually. It took a full month after Holloway departed for Pulis to end up in the hot seat in SE25 but by May Palace had risen a record breaking 9 places to 11th – the biggest rise ever from a club bottom at the end of November. The team conceded just one more goal in Pulis’ 24 games in charge than in Holloway’s opening 12 – the change was marked, and his methods were working. Pulis transformed a side previously looking close to self-destruction into a tough unit, a side that people hated playing again, while doing it without completely killing the innovation and flair within the side. He even transformed other people’s opinions of him – he came to the club with the stigma of being a ‘one-dimensional manager’ and this was a view that even Steve Parish admitted to having before speaking to Tony. He left it as manager of the year, his CV enhanced by not only his achievement but the way he met his brief with the style of play employed.
The rest of the season, as they say, is history. Palace stayed in the Premier League for the first time in their history, finishing 11th in the process and earning Pulis manager the LMA Premier League manager of the year award in the process. Everything was good in South London.
The summer came and with it the opening of the transfer window – the beginning of the end if the papers are to be believed. The summer of 2014 saw 3 signings prior to Pulis’ departure totalling a just £2.4 million with Martin Kelly, Fraizer Campbell & Brede Hangeland being brought in. There were murmurs of disquiet at the club throughout the summer after Steven Caulker& Gylfi Sigurdsson both signed for other sides, as well as the deal for Michu never materialising. Parish claims Pulis didn’t leave over the club’s lack of business over the summer and quite frankly, I doubt we will ever know why Tony chose to leave and especially when. But leave he did, putting the club in a precarious position as he did so.
At the end of the day, Tony Pulis is perhaps the biggest reason why we are playing West Brom on the weekend, why Yohan Cabaye saw Crystal Palace as a reasonable career move and why progression of our training facilities and a new (or developed) stadium are possible. He built the foundation for every single improvement we have seen in the last season and a bit and I find it hard to take anything away from the man that gave my club the chance to do all that it has done. However, paradoxically I think that his departure was essential for that progression to have actually materialised. I think it’s fair to say that at both Stoke and Palace Pulis built foundations, but can you honestly say that Cabaye would have signed while Pulis was in charge? Or Shaqiri and Afellay for Stoke?
I, along with most palace fans, was outraged when he left the club 2 days before the start of the season. He came in to do a job and was justly rewarded when he completed that job – both financially and with the respect he gained from world media and Palace fans in particular. Then he threw it all away. I will be forever grateful for the job he did that kept our club in the Premier League but he always seemed disassociated from the job and I don’t believe that somebody who truly cared about the club (beyond their pay check) would have acted in such a way. Steve Parish is a successful businessman and I have no doubt that he, like everyone, can be tough to deal with and by the same token I’m sure working with Pulis can’t have been easy. But one left the club in the lurch and one saved the club from administration and has subsequently overseen one of the swiftest rises in Palace’s history and a few people forgot that at the time. It wasn’t so much what Tony did, it was when, and in what manner, which really left a bad taste in the mouth of the fans.
Now the prodigal son has returned and pushed Palace further even than Pulis did. So thank you Tony, thank you for the past year of exciting football under Pardew, thank you for Yohan Cabaye and thank you for our continued success! After all, you leaving made it all possible…
