The Great Beyond

Following more failed relaunches than The Generation Game, Stoke City have said "f**k it" and taken their biggest gamble of the century...

After years of beige, sluggish malaise, an injection of good, old-fashioned chaos does at least allow you to feel something. The shock dismissal of Steven Schumacher isn’t quite up there with the biggest jawdroppers of modern Stoke City. It’s not the Steve Cotterill farce, with its whispers of panicked, bungled escapes and keys locked in cars, or the spin-off DLC of George Burley’s subsequent dramatic u-turn. It isn’t even quite the iron discipline of the Pulis era disintegrating in an orgy of pig’s heads and bricks through windscreens. It’s safe to say, however, that few of us (least of all the man himself) saw Schumacher’s departure coming, and surely literally nobody outside Jon Walters’ inner circle identified a 36-year-old Catalan in East Anglia as his successor. Is it a masterstroke? Is it the biggest folly in nearly a decade of them? It’s tough to see a middle ground…

New Year’s Steve

Surprising though his exit was, I’m not sure the end of Schumacher’s reign quite merits the five stages of grief. He seemed a decent bloke, and had worked hard to re-establish some semblance of the connection between team and supporters squandered so negligently by the arrogant Alex Neil. His commitment to opportunities for young players was laudable. Yet we really only ever saw glimpses of the front-foot, high octane football he promised on arrival, and the start of the season seemed to see us moving further and further away from that blueprint. It’s hard to make a case that we looked consistently good in any of our first five league games. The opening day against Coventry was as good as it got, and even then we had to weather more than one storm. Victory at Plymouth may prove valuable but was unconvincing; the displays against Watford and West Brom were wretched; the defeat at Oxford was a contender for the worst performance since his appointment. The decision had likely already been made before then, but running scared of a newly promoted side to the extent that you’re playing a Scrappy Doo full back at number 10 hardly screams “don’t sack me, Jon”.

The abrupt severing of ties has inevitably inspired florid theories of bust-ups and player revolts, more than one messageboard buccaneer dressing up Ben Gibson as Lady Macbeth entirely on the grounds that he may have had occasion to discuss the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre with the new Head Coach at some point over the last 12 months. The likeliest explanation is that Schumacher was inherited by a sceptical new Sporting Director and didn’t do enough to win him over.

Homage to Catalonia

Far more contentious is the call that places one Narcis Pelach in the dugout. It’s impossible not to be nervous about the appointment of a first-time Head Coach with so little experience, but it’s also quite liberating to have no expectations or inklings or preconceptions whatsoever. Most of us have called managerial appointments correctly (I thought Mark Hughes was a good choice, and Gary Rowett absolutely wasn’t) and hideously, mortifyingly incorrectly (I bought what Nathan Jones was selling, I thought Neil was a terrific get). Pelach’s lack of track record makes it easier to just sit back and watch whatever will unfold, whether it’s glory or a towering inferno of a fuck-up.

Pelach is clearly an intelligent, articulate, meticulous coach, highly respected by the playing staff at Norwich and with a burgeoning reputation in the game. There’s a feeling that it was only a matter of time before someone gave him an opportunity as a Head Coach, and for once, we are in on the ground floor. He’s sat under the learning tree of some of the greats (Guardiola, Bielsa…Warnock) and while he’s inexperienced, experience has arguably never been less important. The managers of last season’s Championship top two had a mere six months as Head Coach under their collective belts (all of it Enzo Maresca’s ill-fated Parma stint) before taking over at Leicester and Ipswich respectively. Carlos Corberan, Pelach’s mentor, similarly had little experience on his CV when appointed at Huddersfield, and he’s shown himself to be one of the best managers in the division.

Reasons to be fearful? Chief among them is surely that Stoke City are a Nosferatu football club that devours the souls of bright, hip managerial prospects. Jones and Schumacher each arrived walking on air having been sold the dream, brimming with big ideas, only to abandon them all in desperate search of something, anything, that might stop the bleeding.

The timing of the sacking/appointment was also strange. Why, for the second time in three seasons, have we allowed a manager a full summer transfer window and then binned them five games in? Why wasn’t Schumacher given his cards in May if Walters didn’t believe in him?

It could be rationalised if the Sporting Director/Head Coach model was working as it’s supposed to, with Walters identifying Pelach as a man with a vision and style of play that suit the playing squad at his disposal. The early signs are that this…isn’t the case.

It appears that Pelach is set on implementing a death-by-passing possession game, but just to invoke Dr Ian Malcolm for a moment, he may be so preoccupied with whether he could, that he hasn’t stopped to think if he should. Is this squad, a mish-mash of the Neil and Schumacher eras, each of whom wanged on about the importance of getting the ball forward quickly, really capable of a patient, technically demanding passing game? Our better attacking players, like Manhoef and Koumas, are quick and direct - does this change really suit them?

The whole point of having a Head Coach is that you’re protected from the tactical whiplash that comes with replacing one manager-god for another, yet Walters’ massive gamble seems to have dumped us in the same situation once again.

I’m Super (Jon), Thanks for Asking

The events of the last two weeks have provided something of a rude awakening for a section of the support regarding the reality of Walters’ position. It’s been darkly amusing to see those who bristled at the suggestion he was appointed as a mere cheerleader in March now broil in their own fury as they’re proven horribly right. He is the single most important figure in running the football side of the club. Those of us who suggested at the time that it was an odd call to hand that role to someone whose track record amounted to six undistinguished months in League One were drowned out in a chorus of “Super Jonny Walters”. Would he have been remotely in the running were it not for his record here as a player? Of course not. Again, as with Pelach, we’re left clinging to the hope that it’ll work out based on not much. Experience has never been less important in football though, am I right guys? Guys?

We’ve given the keys to the kingdom to managerial whizzkids from the league below. We’ve looked to international managers to replicate their miracles at club level. We’ve backed experienced Championship managers with play-off finishes and even promotions to the Premier League on their CVs. All that’s left to try is this step into the great unknown. We are Truman Burbank, after years of yearning for better, of thinking there must be more than this, opening up the big blue door, with no idea what’s behind it, or which direction he’ll take.

Good morning, Championship. And in case we don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.