Tony Pulis fits Sheffield Wednesday’s new more sensible approach – so lets give the bloke a chance

It’s safe to say that Pulis’ arrival at Wednesday this week was not universally celebrated by the Owls fanbase – he’s been called a dinosaur, his style has been criticised, and it’s been seen by some as a step backwards.

But is it though? Or is it more in line with a route that has changed at Hillsborough over the last couple of years?

The club’s transfer policy has changed. That’s become more ‘sensible’ over the last few windows. Signing a Dominic Iorfa for £200,000 was sensible, as was signing Izzy Brown on loan – it feels like the days of expensive mistakes are in the past for Dejphon Chansiri.

So while Pulis may be the former, potentially expensive, he’s almost certainly not a mistake in the sense that he’s tried and tested and – in my view anyway – almost guarantees the club’s Championship safety.

Steve Bruce’s appointment at Wednesday was widely lauded by Wednesdayites when he came in, and for me, this one should feel the same. They’re very similar, and bring similar attributes to the table.

The pair have been in charge of an almost identical amount of Championship games over the years (Pulis 243, Bruce 248), and while Bruce has a better points per game average (1.72 over 1.53), he’s arguably been in charge of better teams.

Wednesday’s new coach helped Plymouth Argyle on the way to becoming a comfortable Championship outfit, and there’s no need to even start on what he did with Stoke City, taking them from midtable obscurity to the UEFA Europa League in six seasons.

He got mixed responses at Boro, but after two seasons where he achieved 5th and 7th place, the club went on to finish 17th in their campaign following his departure. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done.

Given the teams he’s been in charge of, it’s pretty remarkable that Pulis has never been relegated – and that’s no disrespect to those teams. Keeping the Potters in the Premier League for as long as he did was an achievement on it’s own.

They had been out of the top-flight for 21 seasons when he re-joined the club in 2006. By end of his second campaign they were in the Premier League.

It’s been 20 seasons since Wednesday last graced to top tier of English football, and right now they’re in a relegation dog-fight. I don’t think there are many managers in the world more equipped to make sure they’re the strongest dog in the fight.

Sure, maybe the football might not be great, but maybe it’ll be effective. And right now Wednesday need to win football games, and maintain their status in the Championship.

Chansiri has tried the high-risk high reward approach, now he’s playing it safe. And I for one won’t be sad to see a bit of stability brought to S6 – we need substance over style, and Tony Pulis probably wrote the book on that.

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