Four thoughts after the loss to MK Dons – firepower, fitness and boo boys…

Rob Fielding reflects on a poor away loss for the Valiants and manages to extract some positives from the performance…

Rob Fielding writes…

More firepower needed

It must be a thankless task being a lone forward as Ellis Harrison proved on Tuesday night. Starved of quality service, the new signing put in a real shift, chasing down ball after ball, but largely to no avail. Harrison obviously needed a partner he could play off but on last night’s evidence, Rory Holden, still seeking match fitness and arguably out of position, wasn’t that player.

Harrison did eventually get some reward for his workrate with a late tap-in but it was too little, too late and that obviously begs the question – do Vale need more firepower? I can imagine every Vale supporter will be answering “Yes!” to that one. Jamie Proctor can’t be risked for a match like last night where the turnaround is only a couple of days and the same could well apply for James Wilson, even when he does return to fitness. That potentially leaves Harrison as the only recognised striker who can play consecutive weekend and midweek matches.

I think it’s one of those issues that is staring us in the face. The management team know it and keep telling us they are working on it, the fans are demanding it – it’s just a case of whether the club can get the right player (or indeed players) through the door before the end of the transfer window. It’s a key issue because without those reinforcements, Vale do look painfully short upfront.

Fitness and form will come

I’ve already mentioned Rory Holden, who, despite doing a job out of position to help the team, already seems to have been picked up as a target by some booboys. I think we all need to be patient with a player returning from a very long spell out injured. Darrell Clarke knows him well and clearly believes there is a player in there but sometimes the only way a non matchfit player can become game-fit is to play some matches while not quite “on it.” That to me, is the issue with Holden right now and we need to “hold off Holden” (pardon the pun) and reserve judgement until he’s had ten or so games to get back to speed.

The same applies to captain Tom Conlon, who is also still getting himself up to speed. Conlon gets more leeway from Vale fans than Holden, due to his previous exploits in a Vale shirt, but both are in a similar situation. They are not quite there and it shows but given time both may prove to be assets in League One. Fans may just need to be patient – something that is not always evident among Valiants supporters sometimes.

The boo boys look to have made their choices

It seems remarkable to me that just months after this squad was heralded for a remarkable play-off campaign, some players are already been castigated as terrible and awful.

On Tuesday night, it appeared that targets included Chris Hussey, Jamie Proctor, Rory Holden and even on one occasion Nathan Smith.

Let’s take Chris Hussey as an example… he doesn’t offer the dynamic play and attacking threat that Mal Benning does – but he did little wrong and arguably showed more than youngster Thierry Small – in itself showing that experience at this level can be a good thing. However, if there was the slightest hint of an error by Hussey it seemed that some fans were eager to jump down his throat.

I find it a very odd phenomenon – I will support all the Vale players and I have my favourite (I won’t name him but he’s already been mentioned in this article). It seems that some fans have the opposite glass half-full approach of supporting all the Vale players except for the one they regard as the scapegoat.

We’ve just gone up a division – some players are adapting to a higher division, some are coming back from injury, some are a touch out of form, some are 100% OK – but whatever state those players are in, I suspect that every single one of them (including Messrs Hussey, Holden and Proctor) will probably respond better to praise than to barracking. If some Vale fans want their team to stay and prosper in the new, higher division, they may want to bear that in mind the next time they mindlessly slate one of their own!

And finally…

MK Dons remain something of a pariah club – still despised by many for the way they assimilated Wimbledon FC’s history and league placing. In my view that criticism is correct and should not be forgotten but it’s perhaps not something that should be held against the club as a whole – in my view the person responsible was owner Pete Winkelman, a man whose legacy will be the way he flagrantly leapfrogged the pyramid principle that the rest of the English game adhere to.

So, a word of praise for MK Dons, the club – there was some excellent, cheery stewards who met us as the turnstiles, a friendly security staff member who helped us when we wanted to find the ticket pick-up point and helpful car park staff. It may be a club with a history of controversy – but credit where credit is due – the staffing and experience for the away fans at Stadium MK was first-class. It’s just a pity the result on the pitch was so disappointing.