Why do we always seem to be first up against a new manager?
Stoke City will be making the short trip to Manchester City on Saturday and Tony Pulis will be the first to have to pit his wits against their new boss, Roberto Mancini.
That’s not good news, but something that we should be used to after suffering at the hands of Blackburn Rovers this time last year when we were also first up against Allardyce at Ewood Park.
We also came a cropper in our FA Cup replay at Newcastle the season before when their latest ‘messiah’ Kevin Keegan was unveiled just hours before the match.
What both games should have taught us is that we mustn’t get dragged into the media circus that will surround the match and just concentrate on winning the game. You can’t say that either of those teams set the world on fire with their change of manager and there is no guarantee that Mancini (silly Christmas thought: was he chosen because his surname nearly matches his new club?) will do any better than Mark Hughes, but there certainly could be a short blip while the media hype envelopes Eastlands for which we’ll need to be prepared.
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