Port Vale opinion: when does a promising start become a promotion push?
A Port Vale supporter ponders Port Vale’s promotion credentials after the hard fought point at Mansfield Town.
An opinion of one Vale fan…
Port Vale’s struggling draw away to Mansfield Town was a bit of a stop-start performance. The display from Darrell Clarke’s men left you wondering about the Valiants’ promotion credentials on the short journey home.
It has of course been a very encouraging start to the League Two season with the club sitting comfortably in the playoff positions, and you can only start as you mean to go when all is said and done. But there were moments in the stalemate at the One Call Stadium that played into the paranoia that a fan feels in the early stages of the season when they’re trying to differentiate a good start from a genuine promotion push.
That’s the life of a football fan and after many unsuccessful attempts at going up, you do begin to live in perpetual uncertainty that any good run of form is just that and not a long-term change in direction.
🎥 | @HelloWeAreBlink Goal Cam
Drum Roll Please… 🥁
Here's Tom Conlon's exquisite first-half free-kick against @mansfieldtownfc from our Goal Cam#PVFC pic.twitter.com/sA4V5zJgyw
— Port Vale FC (@OfficialPVFC) October 20, 2021
In an ideal world, every fan hopes that their team surges ahead and builds up an unassailable lead at the top of the table, but that’s not always the case. In general, we’ve seen a cagey start to the League Two season and you only have to look at league leaders Forest Green Rovers being held to a draw at Leyton Orient to understand that no one is taking the bit between their teeth at the moment. In other words, it does seem promotion is there for the taking but as touched on briefly, there were moments in the Mansfield game where you thought if Vale does go up, it will be a continuous slog rather than a blitz.
Points shared in E10 this evening 🤝
Here's how it happened 👇 #WeAreFGR 💚
— Forest Green Rovers (@FGRFC_Official) October 19, 2021
Clarke actually made quite an interesting point in his post-match press conference where he said that Mansfield were in a false position, and he may well be right. But like all long-term predictions in League Two at the moment, it is still a bit early to say for sure either way. The general feeling is that game 18 in the EFL is the stage where you can start seeing patterns emerge in terms of who will go up. That is five games away for Port Vale at the moment with a home tie against Walsall in late November marking the date.
Should Vale get to that stage and occupy one of the spots in the top six or even the top two then there can be a growing case for cautious optimism. This is especially true when you consider that they will be weeks away from bringing in any recruits for the second half of the season.
Indeed, with the January transfer market just around the corner, it becomes essential to use the club’s finances shrewdly in a bid to cement a promotion push. In many respects, it isn’t about how much you spend rather than what you spend it on. In other words, it’s a gamble to splash the cash too early. To get a better understanding of this, follow this link and spot the similarities between bankroll management at a casino and the merits of having a transfer fund set aside for a rainy day. In this article, the editor at Bonusfinder mentions the importance of understanding your available funds and what your return is likely to be when playing in a casino game. Similarly, Vale need to assess their outgoings to ensure they’re getting the most out of what they spend on building up their team.
Essentially, playing all the time isn’t the key to success and neither is spending money for money’s sake in the transfer market. At the end of the day, it all comes down to playing your cards right and so far, Port Vale are in a good position to do that. We can’t quite say for certain that Darrell Clarke’s men have a winning hand yet, but they’re close to the stage where we will find that out