A good news week
GettyImagesRyan Shawcross: Stoke's leader at the backAfter a weekend of frustration and anger at Stoke following the defeat at Carrow Road, it has been a good news week off the field for the club as three particularly encouraging things have surfaced.
News broke on Monday of a new six year contract being offered to our captain whose current deal runs out in 2014. Tying Ryan down to a long term agreement is very much a priority for the club and never more so than at a time when Sir Alex is ruing his decision to sell the one time Man United youngster.
The rumoured length of the deal in question shows excellent ambition from Stoke in keeping one our star assets and is one which will hopefully see Ryan spend his best years in the Potteries. This will naturally throw a spanner in the works for those clubs who have been courting Stoke's captain both publically and behind the scenes and whilst a move is possible regardless of contract, his signing on the dotted line would represent a huge bonus to the club and further illustrate just how settled he is in the area and at the club.
The second piece of good news is the start of the work to improve the Academy following confirmation of Stoke receiving Category A status. The project, which will cost up to £7m, is a huge signal of intent for the future of Stoke City and puts us well on the road to realising the Chairman's vision of a club able to not only capture the best young players from the local area but for them to one day pull on the red and white stripes of the first team. At a time when teams up and down the land pack out their ranks with foreign imports, it may well be that the notion of a team full of local lads is fanciful and, of course players brought in from elsewhere in this country and indeed from abroad will play their part too, but the vision of the Chairman is clear and something every Stokie is fully behind and can be proud of.
The final good piece of news from this week came from the lips of Pulis who has 'threatened' changes in the team for the visit of QPR on Saturday. I will put money on the fact that the first thing anyone hearing that or reading this thought was 'Will he drop Walters?' That remains the key question on the majority of fans' lips and whilst the easy money would be on Whelan coming back in for Whitehead and maybe Matty coming in, it would be a significant milestone for the manager to make the latter change at the expense of Walters and not Kightly.
Pulis, like the rest of us, will be all too aware of the fact that our points return remains a significant concern and that 5 wins in 33 games is entirely unacceptable. In my opinion it will go one of two ways: He will either dig in, put us on panic stations and shut up shop with those he trusts most, i.e. Walters; or he will surprise us all and drop his favourite player and restore the balance we miss so much with the reintroduction of Matty and the redeployment of Kightly to try and kick start our season.
I really can't predict what will happen and whilst I remain hopeful of the latter I will prepare for the former. The fact that our next match is at home will keep the fire of hope burning for now but QPR will be far from an easy game and long time Stokies are all too aware of our habit of helping out teams in trouble. QPR have some excellent players and given Hughes is one of the managers who have successfully sussed our ways out in recent years, I'm more nervous than ever as we approach a key point in our season. I just hope and pray that the manager and team give the fans something to be happy about on Saturday as I fear anything less than a significant change in approach and three points will be met with a response fuelled by the best part of a year of frustration on the terraces. No pressure Tone.
Vis Unita Fortior
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