Narcís Pèlach: The Interview Amid 3 issues He must fix at Stoke City

Narcís Pèlach: The Interview Amid 3 issues He must fix at Stoke City

The 36-year-old Catalan talks about being “totally in” at Stoke City with his head and his heart in his first interview as a Potter. He also talks about creating a team with individuality, variety, and, most importantly, fight.

The 37-year-old quit his role as first-team coach at Norwich City after 16 months to accept the top job at the bet365 Stadium. Stoke has handed him his first shot as a head coach in English football.

Only five games into the new season, Sporting Director Jonathan Walters relieved Schumacher of his duties on Monday. Many in English football were taken aback by the decision to fire the 40-year-old, but the club moved admirably quickly to find a replacement this week.

Pelach’s sole previous experiences as a number one in the dugout came when he was the boss of Spanish lower-league outfit Figueres from 2016 to 2018, and then when he managed Girona’s feeder club, Peralada, for the 2018/19 campaign.

He has been an assistant at Girona, Huddersfield Town and the Canaries in the years since, while also taking charge of the Terriers twice on an interim basis in 2022 and 2023.

The Spainard has a real task on his hands to take the reins at Stoke and prove that he is the man for the job instead of Schumacher, and Football League World have picked out three issues that he must fix immediately now that he is in charge of the club.

Restore balance between defence and attack

Stoke supporters have never seen their team play more attacking and thrilling football than Schumacher’s set-up, but he could be easily criticized for overdoing it with his attacking style, which hurt his team’s defensive record and led to multiple crushing losses.

During his nine months in charge, Stoke suffered four losses of three goals or more: a 5-0 home loss to Leicester City in February, 3-0 losses to Norwich City and Swansea City the previous season, and another 3-0 loss at Watford on the team’s first league away trip of the current campaign.

You must travel back to January 2021, the month in which Stoke were beaten 4-0 in the FA Cup by Leicester, to find four more defeats by three goals or more prior to his appointment, so it is clear that he made his team too easy to beat, and too vulnerable when they were a goal or two down.

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