Tony Pulis has stepped down as Crystal Palace boss after keeping the Eagles in the Premier League against all odds last season
Crystal Palace boss Tony Pulis has left the Eagles just days before the start of the Premier League campaign.
The Eagles now face the daunting trip to Arsenal on Saturday without their experienced boss at the helm, with Keith Millen expected to take charge of the team at the Emirates.
Lacking
Pulis is believed to have held a meeting with Palace’s co-chairman Steve Parish at London hotel, were he apparently stepped down from his position as Eagles boss.
Parish had previously stated that he would give Pulis all the support he needed.
However, it seems that the Palace hierarchy’s lack of support for Pulis in the transfer market has led to the former-Stoke boss leaving Selhurst Park.
Quiet
Palace has been quiet in the transfer market this summer. Their only signings being centre-back Brede Hangeland on a free transfer from Fulham and Fraizer Campbell arriving from Cardiff for a fee believed to be in the region of £900,000.
Ironically, Palace completed their third summer signing on Thursday morning, as full-back Martin Kelly arrived from Liverpool for £1.5million. The signing was one of Pulis’ last acts as Crystal Palace boss.
Fantastic
Last season Tony Pulis did a fantastic job keeping the Eagles in the Premier League and looked to have been building a solid squad of players at Palace. When he took over at Palace in November of last year Palace had won just one game from their first 11 and were bottom of the Premier League.
Pulis always seemed confident in his ability to guide the Eagles to safety, despite their perilous position on his arrival. Not only did he guide the Eagles to an 11th place finish, Pulis managed to get his team to play expansive football in the process.
At Stoke Pulis had become synonymous with playing direct football and also his team being very physical. However, at Palace his team mixed up the styles a lot more and actually played good football in spells last season.
On the way to securing their 11th place finish last season, the Eagles gained a club-record five successive victories, with one of the most memorable coming at Everton, who were chasing Champions League football at the time.
Nobody in the Premier League liked playing against Palace under Pulis, just asked title challengers Liverpool who were pegged back to 3-3 from 3-0 up at Selhurst Park, in one of the games of last season.
Pulis did such a good job in his half season in charge of Palace that he was even named Premier League Manager of the Year, ahead of the likes of Brendan Rodgers, Manuel Pellegrini and Roberto Martinez.
Organised
Tony Pulis does not always produce the prettiest of football teams, but what he does produce is team’s that are hard to beat. He produces teams that are very well organised by meticulously looking at every detail of his team and opposition.
Pulis is a superb man-manager and can drag every last bit of talent out of often mediocre players. It would be interesting to see what he could do with slightly more talented players.
The 56-year-old has never been relegated as a boss and last season’s accomplishment of keeping Palace up against all odds was admirable.
Unwilling
The experienced boss tends to make his teams more than the sum of their parts and without the Welshman Palace could once again struggle in the top-flight. It seems that Palace co-chairman Steve Parish has not done enough to keep Pulis at the club.
Pulis wanted to strengthen his squad with quality summer additions, but it seems that Parish was not prepared to invest much money into the team, which was the last straw for the boss, who was believed to have had a strained relationship with the Eagles co-chairman for a while.
Mistake
Whether Parish got on with Pulis on a personal level or not does not matter. Tony Pulis rescued what seemed to be an impossible situation last season and saved the club from relegation and financial loss.
Surely Pulis deserved the chance to move the club forward this season with a bit of financial backing? It seems Parish believed he did not and this could prove to be one of the biggest mistakes of the summer.
Will Crystal Palace struggle this season without Tony Pulis?
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