Tony’s thoughts … from the best to Brexit
Ricardo Fuller. We signed him for £300,000 from Portsmouth and he was unplayable at times, and such a big character. He was also a bloody nightmare! Saido Berahino was going to play for England, [but] when he didn’t get the move to Tottenham Hotspur he was never the same again. It really affected him. All of the people around him didn’t take responsibility to look after him. He never had that glint in his eye again.
I can’t get my head around it, there’s no common sense being used and the referees aren’t being asked to look at the decisions made in the studio. The decisions should be shown on the big screens so the fans are involved. I still can’t look beyond Man City, I just think Liverpool will fall short again. Leeds will also do it this year.
It’s a total mess and there are too many people acting in their own interests and to hell with the country. and Gerry Taggart. He recalls: “Taggs [Taggart] once asked me for a day off on Monday and came back on the Thursday. I wasn’t very happy with him but we had a huge game on the Saturday. I was still fuming, but I’ll always remember what my old kit man at Bournemouth said: ‘Always pick your best team.’ I picked Taggs and he was the best player by a country mile. After the game we went into the boardroom and one of the Icelandic owners at the time said, ‘That Taggart, he is a lucky player. Every time the ball goes in the air it lands on his head.’ ”
There have also been huge disappointments: Saido Berahino spent most of his final 18 months at West Brom “on the naughty step”.
And there was Michael Owen, who spent his final season as a professional under Pulis at Stoke. He made just eight substitute appearances after signing on a free transfer from Manchester United in 2012. “I never, ever felt his head was on it at any stage while he was at Stoke City,” he says. “He had a boot deal that lasted an extra year in the Premier League when he signed for Stoke, which meant we hardly paid him a penny. Looking back, he never had his mind in the right place. There was also Dave Kitson, who was arrogantly average and didn’t last long in a very tight-knit dressing room.”
For Pulis, the journey from those schoolboy days in Newport is far from over. The football sacking season usually starts next month and his reputation as a Red Adair of management will inevitably see him linked to another firefighting job. Surely, we have not seen the last of that baseball cap just yet.