Farewell Tony Pulis

At last, Tony Pulis has departed West Bromwich Albion.

In my opinion, it is over two years too late, but many will argue against that. My belief was that, as a survival specialist, he would do the job in saving us from the inevitable drop Alan Irvine had unfortunately led us to, and that he did brilliantly, and we would say "thank you and goodbye" to him along with the likes of Youssouf Mulumbu and Graham Dorrans.

Pulis would have left the club a hero of sorts. But he didn't.

After a run of only three victories since picking up 40 points in March of last season, the majority of fans had become restless and realised that time was up for the Welshman. In reality, losing to Huddersfield before international break should have been the end, giving the club two full weeks to find a replacement. However, if it wasn't for supporters' discontent, he would probably still be here now.

Although I was pleased with results and the odd performance in his first half-season as Albion Head Coach, I have never really taken to Pulis at the helm. I have often had debates with friends who are/were pro-Pulis, who believe he did his best with limited resources, kept us in the top flight and brought in quality players, but those points never swayed my feelings.

I could counter all those; the last two seasons he has had more quality in this side than previous managers in our Premier League era and we arguably underachieved (we certainly are now with the big names.

We all knew his football wasn't pretty to watch but it was effective. As it was at Stoke and we saw in his first half-season, although at times in the latter we produced some great performances (Chelsea and Swansea in the league, West Ham in the FA Cup and beating Manchester United at Old Trafford heroically). Even last season between November and February we picked up some outstanding results with the occasional performance to match. But more often than not people forget that it was also quite difficult to stomach. I recall Watford, Swansea, Hull and Bournemouth at home where, even though we won, they were dreadful games of football. We got the results though.

His style of football aside, the treatment of some of the players under his stewardship was quite appalling. Whilst we will never really know the ins and outs, his arrival pushed out players such as Silvestre Varela, Sebastian Blanco and Georgios Samaras, who, even though many say weren't ever good enough for Albion, we never saw enough of any of them to judge. Varela looked particularly promising. Sebastien Pocognoli, Cristian Gamboa and Jason Davidson were originally benched. Davidson left in the summer, but the other two were simply frozen out.

Players who Pulis even brought in himself found themselves in the same boat; Callum McManaman, James Chester, Serge Gnabry, Alex Pritchard and Brendan Galloway, and more recently James McClean, Nacer Chadli and Matt Phillips have all fallen victim to Pulis' "dungeon".

Even our beloved stalwarts James Morrison and Chris Brunt are now suffering on the sidelines!

After Saturday and the outcry from every corner of the Albion fanbase calling for Pulis' head, much of the media and pundits have begun to finally realise what many of us have been saying for a long time.

Yes, Pulis had a reputation of keeping teams up and outsiders are still mocking us saying we should "be careful what we wish for". But you know what I wish for? Our fans to be united behind the team again (which, in fairness, hasn't wavered even in the last couple of games), to enjoy going to games again and to be at least respected.

Ever since Pulis arrived at the club we have been known as "Tony Pulis' West Bromwich Albion" or "Tony Pulis and his West Brom team", known for being "organised", "solid" and "a typical Pulis side". I want us to just be West Bromwich Albion again.