TONY Pulis can take a lot of credit for Stoke’s barnstorming comeback at St James’ Park, but that would not tell the whole story.

His players clearly got a half time talking to at Newcastle and performed better after the interval.

But the two players who made the greatest difference on the day were not in the starting line up.

Glenn Whelan was left on the bench and only came on because Salif Diao got injured after 20 minutes.

Ricardo Fuller waited an hour to get on the pitch and then transformed it with his pace, power and skill.

And the fact that Rory Delap was not playing for the last half hour, a period when Stoke were dominating Newcastle, poses some interesting questions.

If Whelan can make such a difference to the team’s attacking play, why is he not starting games?

Given that Stoke have struggled to create goalscoring chances in the previous three games, but had 10 in this game compared to Newcastle’s seven – in an away match – are we starting games with the wrong line up?

Had Stoke approached the start of the game with same commitment shown at the end, would they have proved me right when I predicted a Stoke win?

It seems obvious that we approach home games with the attitude that we want to win them, but go to other team’s grounds with the view that a 0-0 will do nicely.

That’s the only way I can explain going to Newcastle with a starting midfield of Delap, Diao, Amdy Faye and Pugh.

Ricardo apparently had a bit of a mare on Tuesday and there may be reasons for his not starting the game, but without him and with that quartet in the middle of the park, we were never going to score unless we got a perfect set piece or a Newcastle mistake.

Please Mr Pulis, don’t go to a struggling Blackburn in a fortnight’s time with the same woefully pessimistic, defensive outlook on matches. We need to beat fellow strugglers whenever we play them, not just at the Brit.