Yahoo News Steven Schumacher joins Stoke City list of doom as ruthless Jon Walters takes responsibility
It is tempting to say here we go again: Stoke City, for the sixth season out of the last eight, are changing their boss.
Steven Schumacher had joined mid-way through last December with his eyes wide open, as Alex Neil had done 16 months previously and Michael O’Neill, Nathan Jones, Gary Rowett and Paul Lambert had done in the four-and-a-half before that.
He was walking into a club that was 19th in the Championship after 22 matches, with a squad that had largely been assembled in the previous summer by Neil and Ricky Martin, having finished in the bottom half of the table on five consecutive occasions since relegation in 2018.
READ MORE:What Steven Schumacher said in changing room after Stoke City lost to Oxford United
READ MORE:Expert view on 'workaholic' Narcis Pelach as Stoke City close in on new head coach
Each manager had encountered different challenges but the bottom line was that none had been able to get Stoke to stick in the right half of the division, let alone sustain a push for promotion. Indeed, it was put to Schumacher immediately after he was unveiled that he was being passed a poisoned chalice.
“I am aware of that, but I believe in the processes and structure of how we like to work and we have made a success of that,” he said. "Alex (Neil) was here for 16 months and the manager before that for three seasons so I now need to make my mark as much as possible, work the way we have been working over the past four-and-a-half years, two as a manager, which has been successful and continue to that process for equal success here.”
But nine months later, Schumacher leaves too: P29 W11 D6 L12 F31 A36 Pts 39.
There have been key moments during that nine months, including vital wins over Middlesbrough, his old side Plymouth (twice) and his old pal Ryan Lowe at Preston – on the way to getting the main job done by the spring and keeping Stoke in the division. The club’s youngest ever starting XI ran riot in the Carabao Cup at Middlesbrough only three weeks ago, winning 5-0.
There have been some dispiriting moments too such as defeats at Blackburn and Cardiff, Watford and, lastly and most urgently, Oxford United.
But one of the most important moments has come off the pitch as Martin made way for Jon Walters to take charge as sporting director. It is Walters who is tasked with making the big decisions to bring success. If he has to take the responsibility for making this decision at this point in the season, he could say he would have also had to take the responsibility for not taking it.
It is pretty clear already that Walters is not afraid to make big decisions.
The difference with Stoke making the call five games into 2024/25 rather than five into 2022/23 – or 20 into 23/24 – is that the squad has been assembled for the club rather than a manager. Schumacher was appointed as head coach, after all, and the idea of that any subsequent change in the dug out will not come with a need to overhaul everything else.
The new boss will be identified and appointed to play a system that gets the best out of the players he inherits. There is room for flair but with aggression, in attitude as much as physicality, and working together so the sum is greater than its parts. That must be what they have seen in Narcis Pelach, who is lined up to join from Norwich, where he has been first team coach.
As for Schumacher, he is still only 40 and he will not be blackballed by his time at Stoke. He had guided Plymouth to the Championship as runaway League One champions against all odds and has been able to experience and manage vastly contrasting situations in 2024.
There were times coming out of last winter when it looked like the circumstances might beat him and to pull through it as he did said a lot about him as a person as well as a manager. He put his trust in the players to help find the best solution rather than insist on his way or the highway.
“I don’t know everything,” he said in an open, honest and fascinating end-of-season review. “I get decisions right, I get some decisions wrong, I pick the team and sometimes it works, I pick it wrong sometimes. As long as you can hold your hand up and as long as you can explain to people why you’re making decisions then I think everybody accepts it. We’re all only human, we all want the same thing.
“I’m trying to do my best for myself and for the club, for the family and all of that but sometimes you just get it wrong. In those times you have to be aware.”
So he was aware that the Oxford defeat and performance was nowhere near good enough. He doesn’t do social media but he will have been aware of annoyance and frustration and he was at a club where results have chipped away at patience for far too long and that Walters and chairman John Coates are determined to secure success.
For all that, supporters were still singing his name for at least parts of the match and he was the kind of positive, warm character that supporters could really get behind. The majority seem surprised by this news but then the majority had been surprised by his team selection at the Kassam Stadium and the majority will probably judge this decision by what happens next.
Stoke’s hierarchy have made up their mind that Schumacher wasn’t the right man to match their ambitions and they are prepared to roll the dice. Let’s see what comes up.
