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I've seen a few people asking to bin Nathan Smith off after he has had his first bad run of games in his near decade-long career with us. Please, someone tell me why we should get rid of our most consistent player of the last 8-10 years or so after a month or two of poor performances, during games in which everyone else on the pitch played equally as poorly or worse than him? Some very short memories among Vale fans it seems. He is being played out of position and getting caught out by wingers in a role that doesn't suit him, I like Lowe's organisation of the backline, but his aerial ability for the centre of a three is to be desired. Smith is not the tallest, but at least he can be dominant in the air over the majority of forwards in this league.

It is idiotic to want to get rid of him. Honestly baffles me. The guy is well on the way to being a club legend and has had a below par couple of months and people want him out. Be careful what you wish for because i can tell you now the squad would be in a much worse place without nathan smith in it. People say hes not a captain how the <ovf censored> do you know? I havent looked at any other teams captains and thought Jesus they are doing a lot more on the pitch than nathan does. Just shows the state of our fan base. Get behind the players. Its like the booing of loft ridiculous. Hows he ever going to find and kind of form when every bad touch gets booed. Tbh i wouldn't blame him if he didnt even want to find form and hes been made a scapegoat for our bad form when hes hardly even played. Nathan has given everything for this club for the past ten years never injured never misses a game 90% mr consistent to 10% bad in performances. Try and find another cb whos done that for ten years straight.

Booing them when they are entering the pitch as a sub and haven't even touched the ball is even more reprehensible. It's fair enough to criticise someone if you feel they haven't put the effort in, but how can you possibly come to that conclusion when they are just coming onto the pitch?

Great signing for Oldham. He’s far too good for that level. Shame it’s not worked here as he was brilliant in our promotion season, think that injury has really hampered him. Thought he would end up in league 2 or with DC. Wish him all the best

Not to mention he is hardly ever out injured like a large number of our squad ! Baffles me how the computer never tells AC he needs a rest when he's one of the most worked players in games.

If he plays like he did last season yes.

Some right smart arse did on Sunday at 1751 on page 64 of this thread 😉

Are you going to do the same for a Vale promotion scenario? 😄

100% agree.

Looks like a good all rounder, shoots on sight, excellent passer and as someone who can break up opposition moves, very much a Jensen interceptor

Conlon gone to Oldham. A great signing for them and has been a real pro for us. Despite a few duff games I still admired a lot of his skill and ability. Stunned he is not still in the Football League.

I know some people slag off Crosby but he has brought some good footballers in at the Vale but not including Loft. You can’t blame Crosby for some of the crap he has to work with but not compliment him when happy with the signings, it’s either or.

So we'll have Dan Jones (DJ) and this kid Jensen.

How do not very good Morecambe keep getting their hands on players that easily get into double figures for them? Weir, Stockton and Mellon. Welcome on board David Weirs son. Let me be the first Vale fan to give you a big boo. Booooooooooooooooooooooooo Only kidding. Go on and smash it lad

Scored 10 from midfield for Morecambe last season. Don’t think you could ever fully replace what Garrity does for us while he’s out injured but Weir is not a bad one at all I think.

I'm not a fan of these season long loans with a recall clause in the Jan window so the player can be recalled and sent to another club from a higher league or even a club in a higher position in the same league. Think it makes a bit of mockery for competion over a 46 game season allowing bigger clubs to cherry pick talent from the the 1st half the season. Can you imagine the uproar if Blaster signs for Portsmouth,Bolton or Derby? Hopefully we could take advantage ourselves but either way not a good thing for football.

Without Garrity he should do and if he’s out for a while then definitely. More depth anyway, garrity wont have to play 90 minutes every game

A shame it didn't work out with Conlon, an exemplary pro.

Think they were both there the same time and Jensen will of course also know Ripley, so potentially good for team building. Looks a good player, fingers crossed.

One or two nice on's here:

I would imagine it's more to cover Garrity being out long-term than a sale. I can't imagine anyone (other than Vale of course) signing a crocked player in the January window.

The Vale do 😬

I can get behind booing people off if its an embarrassment of a performance, but booing people on to the pitch both in the case of Gav and Loft is ridiculous.

I heard it was a hareline fracture.

I'm afraid that I'm with you on this one. I usually try and adopt a "glass half-full" approach and give a player a dozen games (to account for adapting to the geographical move, new team mates, gaining match fitness if injured etc) but his record for Vale (I'm not concerned about what he did for other clubs) is one goal in twenty appearances. Even only counting starts it's one in eight. However, stats aside, it's the lack of goal threat which worries me. If you compare with Uche then he has had been shots blazed over, headers go narrowly over, runs into the box etc. I genuinely can't recall Loft having more than about two or three attempts on goal in those 20 appearances. That's awful! To be fair to Loft, he does ping a decent pass from time-to-time but he's not there for that - he's there to provide a goal threat and he's just not done that. I would add that I would dearly wish to be eating humble pie and for him to suddenly find form. I don't want any player in a Vale shirt to fail. But twenty games, one goal and a handful of attempts on goal are dreadful stats for what's supposed to be an important striker signing.

Starting up a little thread for the facts and figures for relegation to see how this one develops. The standings as of 09.01.24 13th - Charlton 14th - Port Vale 15th - Shrewsbury 16th - Wycombe 17th - Burton 18th - Wigan 19th - Cambridge 20th - Exeter 21st - Reading 22nd - Cheltenham 23rd - Carlisle 24th - Fleetwood The odds; 24th - Carlisle 1/5 23rd - Fleetwood 1/5 22nd - Cheltenham 4/6 21st - Reading 5/4 20th - Exeter 7/5 19th - Burton 2/1 18th - Shrewsbury 5/2 17th - Cambridge 4/1 16th - Wigan 11/2 15th - Wycombe 14/1 14th - Port Vale 16/1 13th - Charlton 25/1 Form last 5 games; 13th - Cheltenham - WDLWW - 10pts 14th - Reading WDDWD - 9pts 15th - Burton DLWWD - 8pts 16th - Cambridge LLWWD 7pts 17th - Exeter WDLWL - 7pts 18th - Wycombe DWDLD - 6pts 19th - Port Vale DLWLD - 5pts 20th - Carlisle - LWLDL - 4pts 21st - Wigan DWLLL - 4pts 22nd - Shrewsbury WLLLL - 3pts 23rd - Charlton DLLLD - 2pts 24th - Fleetwood - LLLDD - 2pts Historic Points total needed to stay up; 22/23 - 46pts 21/22 - 41pts 20/21 - 48pts 19/20 - not considered due to pandemic 18/19 - 51pts 17/18 - 51pts 16/17 - 50pts

Welcome to the Vale Jensen! give it your all that's all we ask 💪🏻 💙

Good luck to Conlon, lost it badly after his injury during the promotion season(confidence seemed to go) but was excellent the season we were all locked up and couldn't go. Just sadly no one was there in person to see his 10 goal haul from midfield, his one at Barrow inparticular was a stunner! He should do well for Oldham at NL level if he rediscovers his confidence but needs to learn how to use his right foot again! Nice signing in Weir to replace Arblaster seems a good move.

Good day of business.

Keep up... 😆

Another lad from Warrington who started out at Wigan the same as Alfie....

What's Ruben's job? Football agent?

Our science team would get Kian doing 45 minutes this Saturday

The bookies rarely lose.

Boo the team at the end of a game yes completely understand. Singling out players and booing them what good that going do

I'm sure it'll be a relatively straightforward hopperation.

Joe Taylor been recalled by Luton, presume want to send him to a league 1 team, 12 goals in 25 games in a side in the bottom 3 of league 2. After speaking to a Colchester friend recently, said one of their best forwards they had in 20+ years, would not mind a chance on someone like this, very similar to Thomas in being Welsh under 21, small and quick but clearly has something about him.

Good article here on Denver Hume. Apparently cost Pompey £200k but has hardly played because of a prolapsed disc that then affected his calf muscle. Good player but after signing one injury-prone left wingback in Grant, can’t see us risking another. Just a moment... WWW.PORTSMOUTH.CO.UK

I have no idea. He was the only player who is available who can do much of what Garrity does. Does show how quickly football can turn around, in August he was wanted by Portsmouth, Derby, Blackpool and Reading. He was very, very good for Morecambe. He can play as a 10, right midfield, holding midfield, centrehalf and fullback. I suspect Brighton are still hoping he'll come through but desperately want him playing regularly. I don't think he quite fitted how Blackpool play. At Morecambe he often sat just behind the centreforward, I think he even started an odd game at centreforward. If you want my best guess, Denver Hume from Portsmouth. Alternative would be a fee for Adam Mayor from Morecambe whose a left sided player and pretty young. I believe Morecambe have money problems. The player I'd love to see at Vale is Charlie Kirk, although I don't see it happening.

I might start a 'how will the mid table teams finish the season'?

It covers a few scenarios. Assuming Garrity is out for a while, that gives Weir a clear run in his role. If he’s any good, then it would soften the blow of a BG departure. If he’s not, then we pursue other options etc.

David Weir is technical director at Brighton as well as being Jensens dad

I think Smith is struggling more with the captaincy than anything else. He's played left and right of a back 3 quite a lot. It is different being a captain and it does often detract from a player's game. Whether it's right or wrong we seem to use the central centrehalf as what used to be called a sweeper. The left or right centrehalf take the centreforward and the central one covers. When we were relatively secure defensively we also had Ojo who cleared up a lot infront of the back 3. I'm not really sure what Lowe is like in the air one on one with a centreforward because I can't remember him being in that position. Where I think he is culpable is the number of goals from low crosses where we have 2/3 defenders on or inside the 6 yard box and an attacking player is left free in the space between the 6 yard box and the penalty spot. Charlton's 3rd goal was an example, although in that case I think it was Grant who should have pushed out. If Lowe is being used as a sweeper he should really take charge of either pushing into that space or getting others to push out into that space. We had Lowe, Grant and Lacovitti not marking anyone within 3/4 metres of their goal scorers and nobody within a metre of him.

JCH wont help them defensively! They looked miles off, but oddly their forward line looked the only decent part aside from the keeper. Lincoln could be a bit of a dark horse to slip into trouble, lost 4 drew 2 of the last 6 and seem way out of form.

On a side note ive seen Shrewsbury play a few times this season and have been really impressed by that dunkley they have as cb. Think theres next to no hope of getting him but would love him down the vale

And so it should. There was 13500 Stoke fans who attended on Saturday at a gate of 17,000. Had this been a league game the attendance would have been reported as around 23,000 as it would have included season ticket sales and other ticket sales even if they had not turned up. There was most likely less than 17,000 in the ground but the figure given will be a lot more accurate than the league games. Despite Boro selling 3100, there was only 2700 that turned up, this is the figure we reported. Had it been Bradford, Stoke and a lot of other clubs we would have reported 3100 away fans attended.

Attendance simply means someone has attended a game, not whether they have paid for a ticket.

It doesn't matter a toss what other clubs do, or what happens to them! We may not be unique - that doesn't make the problem any less real. Also, I'd guess there may be a difference between Pompey's budget (their attendance is roughly 3 x ours!)?