David Flitcroft – Port Vale are widening their striker search
Port Vale director of football David Flitcroft says that the club are looking around the globe as they continue to look to boost the club’s striking ranks.
The club currently have James Wilson, Uche Ikpeazu and Ryan Loft backed up by youngster Baylee Dipepa as the club’s current striking options. However, they will want to replace loanee Josh Thomas who has been recalled by Swansea City.
We’ve moved the target now and looked at some different markets – the Scandinavian market, the Australian market, the USA market, New Zealand… they are comparable markets to English League One
Flitcroft told BBC Radio Stoke: “Obviously it’s no secret that the striker search continues. We’re working tirelessly behind the scenes and we’ve lost out on a couple.”
He confirmed that the club was widening their net adding: “We’ve moved the target now and looked at some different markets – the Scandinavian market, the Australian market, the USA market, New Zealand… they are comparable markets to English League One.”
The reason for looking elsewhere is the inflated prices in the lower leagues as Flitcroft explained: “What we’re finding is that a bit like in the summer when (Will) Goodwin goes for four hundred grand from League One and he’s played a handful of games, it distorts the market, Armstrong who went to Carlisle for serious money, Wrexham bidding on Stephen Humphrys – it distorts the market.
“There’s still players that we’re looking at and we’ll continue to do that. The PL2 market is quite a good market for us. We’ve probably been on it six to eight weeks now, making sure we’ve got all the stats that we need. We’ve got brilliant links with some of the top clubs. We’ve got five or six days to go and it’s a moving market. There’s two or three Championship players we’ve enquired about and their clubs are waiting to get their striker before they move on and let one go.
“We know we can’t compete financially (with the top League One sides) what we can compete with is the country’s best young talent and we’ve done that really successfully.”
The club will also look for forwards in the summer too, Flitcroft added: “In the summer it will change, we will reset the budget, we have good young players coming in. That enables us to move the budget. That will allow us to pay more for a striker and maybe move the benchmark on that. That’s something we did with Connor Ripley, the goalkeeper (in the summer of 2023).”