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Brian Laws suggests clash of personalities could have led to Pulis sacking

| 29 December 2020

Brian Laws suggests clash of personalities could have led to Pulis sacking

Tony Pulis was dismissed by Sheffield Wednesday after only 45 days.

A clash of personalities could be behind Tony Pulis' shock departure from Sheffield Wednesday, according to former Hillsborough boss Brian Laws.

Pulis was sacked on Monday night only 45 days after replacing Garry Monk, having won one of his 10 games in charge.

Laws, who left the Owls by mutual consent in 2009 after three years as manager, said there appeared to have been a breakdown in the relationship between Pulis and club owner Dejphon Chansiri.

Sheffield Wednesday have terminated the contract of manager Tony Pulis with immediate effect #swfc

— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) December 28, 2020

"Knowing Tony like I do, he's a straight talker and he hits you between the eyes," Laws told the PA news agency.

"He'll tell you the truth and if you don't like it, that's tough. Maybe it was too much medicine for Chansiri to take.

"But I always had in the back of my mind that Tony Pulis, he's very strong willed, strong minded, as much as Chansiri is, so it was always going to go two ways for me.

"It was either going to be a match made in heaven or it was going to end in blood and tears and we've got the latter."

Dejphon Chansiri is in the hunt for his sixth manager since taking control at Hillsborough in 2015 — Dejphon Chansiri is looking for his sixth manager since taking control at Hillsborough in 2015 (Mike Egerton/PA)

Chansiri, whose family owns Thai Union Frozen Group, is searching for his sixth manager in as many years following his takeover in 2015.

In November, the club's 12-point deduction for breaching spending rules was reduced to six points by the English Football League and Laws feels Wednesday's problems are deep-rooted.

"They've got to be for the simple reason for the last year or so it's been stop-start, inconsistency, not quite getting there," Laws said.

"But I have huge sympathy for the chairman in the amount of money he's put into the club. The return he's had is atrocious.

Pulis spent just 45 days at Wednesday, winning one of his 10 games in charge (Richard Sellers/PA)

"So I have huge sympathy for him for that, but you've got to support your manager and I don't know what the conversations have been between them both.

"There's clearly been a huge breakdown in what both parties want."

Former Barnsley boss Jose Morais, who has previously worked as Jose Mourinho's assistant at Chelsea, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Porto, has been linked with the vacancy.

Gus Poyet and former Vissel Kobe boss Thorsten Fink are also among the bookmakers' favourites, but Laws insisted Pulis was the best man for the job.

Former Sunderland manager Gus Poyet is among the favourites to replace Pulis (Owen Humphreys/PA)

"You couldn't have asked for a better person to come in and get them out of the mess," Laws added.

"He would be top of the list. So who else are they going to look for?

"While everyone would have loved Tony to have got off to a flying start, it's deeper than that and it was always going to take longer to turn it round.

"He was slowly, but surely doing that and I'm pretty convinced he would have got Wednesday to a safe place."