"Unrest" - Don Goodman issues warning to Stoke City chiefs regarding Narcis Pelach appointment | OneFootball

Narcís Pelach was appointed as Steven Schumacher's replacement in September

Don Goodman has claimed that Narcís Pelach must succeed at Stoke City or else the club could face significant backlash from supporters.

Steven Schumacher was controversially dismissed from his role as manager by the Potters in September, with Pelach arriving as his replacement.

The Spaniard was previously an assistant coach at Norwich City and Huddersfield Town, but has taken on his first role as the main manager in his English football career.

Stoke lost their first two games with the 36-year-old in charge, but an emphatic 6-1 win over Portsmouth midweek has seen the new manager get off the mark.

Four goals from Tom Cannon, as well as strikes from Sam Gallagher and Andrew Moran, earned the club their first win since 1-0 victory over Plymouth in August.

Don Goodman issues Stoke warning

Goodman has warned the Stoke hierarchy that they will be the subject of fan backlash if the appointment of Pelach doesn’t turn out successful.

He believes that a possession-heavy style of play that lacks aggression in the final third will receive criticism from supporters following chants from fans in their loss to Middlesbrough for the team to attack.

“Narcís Pelach has to succeed, or we'll see fan unrest,” said Goodman

“Losing his first two games was not a great start before beating Portsmouth.

“He wants to play a different style and be possession-heavy but I read the reports from the Middlesbrough game and, by all accounts, the Stoke fans were singing for their team to attack as they were just passing sidewards and backwards.

“Ben Gibson and Ben Wilmot, the two centre-halves, completed over 100 passes each, but if they're to each other, the full-backs, or goalkeeper, it's redundant.

“Beating Pompey was absolutely massive for Stoke.

“If they lost, then they'd have been looking over their shoulders worrying about the bottom three, let alone thinking about the top six.”

Stoke City league position

The 6-1 win over Portsmouth on Wednesday night saw Stoke move up to 15th in the Championship table.

The Potters are six points behind sixth place Blackburn Rovers, and they will have their sights set on closing that gap in the coming weeks.

The win over Pompey ended a three-game losing streak, with the team failing to win a single fixture in September, even needing penalties to come through Fleetwood Town in the EFL Cup.

Next up for Stoke is a trip to face Swansea City on Saturday in a 3pm kick-off.

Stoke need to show patience in their own vision

Stoke’s ambition is to gain promotion back to the Premier League, but this constant chopping and changing of their vision for how to do so is not working.

Pelach has been appointed with a totally different style of play to the previous manager, whose style was also different to the man he succeeded, which has been a recurring theme for quite some time.

This lack of joined-up thinking has led to a lot of attempts to overhaul the squad, which has led to a waste of their resources.

They’ve made the decision to bring in Pelach, and it’s one they now need to show patience with and stick to, even if the Spaniard does endure a slow start with the team.