After less than one season at Selhurst Park, Tony Pulis appears set to leave Crystal Palace. Amid reports that the manager was at odds with the club over lack of support in the transfer market, the former Stoke boss has left the Eagles, leaving the team without a manager two days before opening the 2014-15 season against Arsenal.
Pulis joined Palace in November in the wake of Ian Holloway’s departure. Over the course of the next six months, the Welsh manager lifted his new club into 11th place, saving a team man picked to go down at the onset of the season.
In the wake of that success, Pulis has lobbied for more money in the transfer market. Unable to come to a resolution during talks with co-chairman Steve Parish, the 56-year-old has reportedly walked away from the job:
Tony Pulis has left Crystal Palace following disagreements over transfer policy. Official confirmation shortly. What a blow to #CPFC.
— Oliver Kay (@OliverKay) August 14, 2014
Though Palace has had a quiet summer, the team has been able to bring in Brede Hangeland, Martin Kelly, and Frazier Campbell. Combined with the results the Eagles posted in the second half of the season (and the two-plus weeks remaining in the transfer window), the club had reason to be conservative in its approach, particularly in light of Pulis’s failure to do more with Stoke’s £80 million net spend in his last five years at the Britannia Stadium.
Unfortunately, Pulis and Parish had engineered a lose-lose. Without Pulis, last year’s results mean nothing; at least, as it concerns how the squad will perform this season. And without Palace, Pulis is out of a job, with six months’ work forming a squad tossed out the window.