TONY Pulis will know there are some distinctly tough and delicate decisions to be taken over the next week or two.

Results prove there can be no "untouchables" on his team sheet as he seeks that elusive winning formula.

Where once we were looking over our shoulder with a cursory – even contemptuous – glance towards the bottom of the Premier League, now it is a glance accompanied by increasing anxiety.

How we scoffed at the manager a few weeks ago when he was talking about reaching 40 points, while the rest of us were already thinking about 50 plus.

Of course, Stoke are too good to go down, but they currently have a strange way of showing it.

Not too many travelling fans are likely to have shared the generous appraisal Pulis bestowed on Saturday's performance.

Peter Crouch has admittedly been starved of the kind of service he would have routinely enjoyed at Tottenham, but a ratio of a goal every five hours going into Saturday's game is nevertheless a modest and potentially costly return on his £10m investment.

And his failure to control a far-post chance 10 minutes into the second half, never mind control and score, was in stark contrast to the clinical events surrounding Fulham's opening goal earlier in the afternoon.

Jon Walters appeared to have come through that Christmas period when he looked in need of a rest, but recent appearances out wide have only served to highlight a fixture workload he might be feeling more than most.

Kenwyne Jones played as the withdrawn striker at Fulham, as he had at Old Trafford 11 days earlier, but he appeared to be caught between two stools on Saturday after lacking the mobility to regularly support either his midfielders behind or Crouch up ahead.

Matthew Etherington, on his own honest admission, has been largely indifferent this season, and once again couldn't quite discover that fifth gear which elevates him above your average winger.

Jermaine Pennant continues to serve a sentence for a previous fall-out with the manager, at least in the eyes of supporters, as they plead in increasing numbers for a much longer glimpse of their right winger.

He, like Ricardo Fuller, certainly brought a greater zest to Stoke's pedestrian efforts following their introduction two-thirds into Saturday's contest.

But is now the time to rid him, if not Fuller, of that "impact" tag slapped on his head over the past three months?

Re-addressing Pennant's role is but one of the many dilemmas exercising the manager as he bids to arrest this slide of four successive league defeats ahead of back-to-back home games against Swansea and Norwich when the Premier League cranks back into life.

Lose against those two, with trips to Tottenham and Chelsea following on the fixture list, and we'll be running for cover quicker than you can say Pavel Viktorovich Pogrebnyak.

Before then, of course, there is the little matter of two Europa League games either side of a fifth-round FA Cup tie when Pulis will have to juggle his players around to cater for their on-going participation and travelling exertions in three competitions.

No-one will be untouchable during this period, but it will be interesting to see what notion he and the rest of us have about his strongest starting 11 when Stoke re-emerge for Premier League action.

In their defence, Stoke were a little unlucky on Saturday after conceding two goals backing the manager's argument that the breaks aren't exactly adding up to 147 where his players are concerned.

Fulham's first was initiated by a miss-hit shot from John Arne Riise, but thereafter you had to doff your bear cap to their Russian newcomer, the aforementioned Pogrebnyak, for controlling the ball and hitting the roof of the net in the blink of an eye via a cracking connection.

And Fulham's second, though you might point a finger at Thomas Sorensen, was still a touch fortuitous as the Dane's punishment for not flicking over Clint Dempsey's swerving, dipping long-ranger was to have the ball cannon off the bar and then off his falling body en route to the back of the net.

Between the two goals came Pogrebnyak's studs-up challenge on Wilson Palacios, which went completely unpunished, and is but one in a long line of justifiable grievances Pulis is stacking up against referees.

He later insisted Stoke were on top well before what many will consider were his belated substitutions and, in fairness, there had been that missed opportunity by Crouch and the sight of Matthew Upson, giving a fair account of himself after returning to the ranks, volleying over a chipped free-kick that found him eight yards from goal.

There was definitely a greater zip and cutting edge about the visitors once Pennant and Fuller were on the pitch, however, and the latter might have bagged his first league goal in 11 months had he not scuffed a shot on the run after being released by Walters.

Pennant's influence at set pieces was also evident in Stoke's one breakthrough when his near-post corner was flicked inside the far post by Ryan Shawcross, to underline his fine second-half display at both ends.

The one real chance to even things up came and went in the 80th minute, in truth, when Crouch forgivably snatched at a half-chance and volleyed off target after Fuller had guided a free-kick back into the danger zone.

The countdown to Stoke's eighth successive defeat in the capital was already underway by the time Dempsey streaked clear of a stretched defence, rounded the advancing Sorensen, but then rolled his angled effort against the near post instead of into the empty Stoke goal.

It was a stroke of luck Stoke could have done with far earlier in the afternoon.

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