Stoke City ‘going in right direction’ after important lesson insists boss
Narcis Pelach admits there are improvements to be made on the physical, mental and tactical point of view but he is confident of progress
Narcis Pelach believes Stoke City need to channel their energy and enthusiasm at times to keep control of matches in the Championship.
Pelach admitted Stoke lost grip of their clash with Bristol City on Tuesday evening after going 2-0 up inside the first 14 minutes. In the end, his side had to fight to hang on for a point at 2-2 and they are now preparing for another big test at Sheffield United on Saturday (3pm).
He is confident that it wasn’t down to lack of application to the point where he needs to remind players about the importance of positional discipline at a time when they are being asked to keep raising their physical output.
We lost control without the ball. Sometimes you can dominate games without the ball,” he said. “You don’t need to have the ball all the time, especially against teams like Norwich, like Bristol City, ball possession sides.
“There are lots of teams in the Championship now who want to have a lot of the ball and they are made for that, with midfielders who are ball handlers. Bristol are one of these sides. You have to accept at some point you just have to defend and stop them coming into your box.
“We wanted to go and press and press and press with the energy. It comes from a nice place but we lost control because we wanted to do more. I have to talk to the team and explain that sometimes by wanting to do something good you can do something wrong. It is what it is. There are lots of things we are trying to work on.”
