Extract from the work in progress

…Pulis has his own version of this: whoever can hurl the thing the furthest is a certainty for the starting eleven, and that man is Rory Delap. There is something of Desperate Dan about Rory, he is big, he is basic, he is industrial, and he has the Desperate Dan chin and the stubble, though when Trezza sees him on television she says he is ‘good looking.’ Rory was once more at the touchline, making his run up to take another long throw. Why did Pulis insist on this primitive device? He had persisted with it all last season and goals were seldom the result, even in the Championship, though goal kicks to the opposition there came aplenty. Its use was part of the stop-start game that typified the manager’s no-frills attitude. Or, to be more accurate, his no-frills attitude with a side order of no frills plus a no-frills top-dressing accompanied by a no-frills side salad. I don’t like writing tabloid sentences like that, but Pulisball can push you to it. You could easily believe that bullet point two on the Pulis chalk board (after bullet point one: lump it up to Mama) is: slide it long into the channel & whoever gets to it first belt it at the opposition full back in order that it flirts off for a line-out so that Rory can get to do his stuff.

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