The Sky Sports pundit was making a comparison between the Potters boss and Tottenham counterpart Mauricio Pochettino.
Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson has praised Stoke City’s players for how they “busted a gut” in their Championship game against Swansea City in order to get a result for under-fire manager Nathan Jones.
The Potters have endured a torrid start to the season, failing to pick up a single win from their first 10 league games to leave them bottom of the table, and as such, calls from some sections of the fanbase grew ever louder regarding the manager’s tenure at the Bet365 Stadium.
With Stoke heading to high-flying Swansea at the weekend, it looked a very tough ask for the Potters to claim a result, but that’s exactly what they did as Sam Clucas levelled for the Potters midway through the first half after Andre Ayew’s early opener, before substitute Scott Hogan tapped home from close range at the death.
Merson commented on the Staffordshire side in the context of Tottenham Hotspur’s current issues, with the Arsenal cult hero suggesting that Spurs may have the opposite problem, namely Mauricio Pochettino not having players who wouldn’t “run through a brick wall” for him.
“There are ways of losing football matches and that wasn’t a good way to lose,” Merson told Sky Sports in reference to Tottenham’s 3-0 hammering at Brighton. “If I was the manager, I’d sitting there on Sunday morning thinking, ‘Are these players with me?’.
“You look at Stoke the other day when they went to Swansea. They were bottom of the league and couldn’t win a game for toffee, but they busted a gut and got a result for their manager. I look at that and I think that those players are with the manager. They are not mugging that manager off and will run through a brick wall for him.”
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