Tony Pulis and the Set-Piece (preview of Reading vs Stoke City game)

Reading v Stoke City looks like it might be the battle of the set-pieces.

As Tony Pulis is aware, Stoke had the best record of goals per set-pieces in the Premier last season (58%), whereas Reading conceded the most goals in the Championship per set-piece conceded (42%).

“We probably won’t score tomorrow now you’ve said that!” he quipped in this week’s press conference.

But be in no doubt, both sides will have been practising corners, free-kicks and the famous long throw (and how to defend against it) all week long in order to gain an advantage.

And talking of long throws, TP was asked about plans to standardise Premier pitches to make them all the same size. Perhaps surprisingly he didn’t seem bothered. “If they need to do it, they need to do it. Last season in the Europa League we had to open the pitch up and we did very well, and the pitch was a lot bigger than what the Premier League say is the adequate size for their league.”

Maybe he feels it won’t happen; or maybe he thinks that any new official size might be much smaller than people think to accommodate the older smaller grounds that can’t be made any bigger rather than the larger/newer grounds with room for a large pitch.

As for the opening fixtures: “We’ve had tough starts, but this is most probably the toughest start we’ve had.” And Reading as an opening game: “I’d rather be going to one of the top sides than a newly promoted team – that’s what nobody wants.”

For more on that interview with 6 Towns Radio's Dave Lee, see, youtube