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Responsible for everything that touches the grass yet not accountable for any of it. Someone needs to make a banner of this. Sums it all all up perfectly.

Only my opinion but DC should still be our manager. Flickers used him as a scapegoat. We would have beaten Bristol Rovers after he left and stopped up. He would have had a reset and we would be a comfortable League 1 side now As it is Darren Moore will have 2 seasons to get us back up but with the Flickers puppet master in charge I only see us struggling in league 2. For a successful business woman I don't know why she is so scared of him. Season tickets sales of 3.5k and the likes of Harrogate Barrow Newport Crawley Accrington Morecambe etc might just make her take stock.

We all wanted a better transfer window than January 2023. We got an even worse one! If DM can turn this team around and get enough points to keep us up, he will have performed a miracle!

I don’t for one second believe that clubs like Stevenage, Wycombe, Cambridge, Northampton etc.. have better off field income streams than us.

Nah I think we'll judge him on this one, thanks. Everyone else managed it. Even Fleetwood without a manager and with their bankrolling owner in prison. That excuse doesn't come out in the wash.

How many years will it take to be Championship Ready? How many years for Pompey? It took the Owls 2 years with their money, and it doesn't look if they were ready. Concentrate on building an L1 team first, the facilities will grow in parallel, there will be time. Where does the money come from? Sustainability or windfalls? That is the question. Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app

3 wins from the last 26 league games !!!! Anybody that thinks we will stay up are on something....

I said at the time what an absolute nonsense it was to postpone important fixtures for international kids games. All it's done is make these postponements pressure fixtures while Arblaster and Devine are long gone. I don't ever want to see that nonsense again.

Our playing budget this season is ranked higher than the bottom 4. We are under performing and should not be bouncing around the relegation spots for the second year running based on finance.

We finished 9th and 12th in this league under Norman Smurthwaite, one of the conmen who ran us as a complete shambles that you referred to. How do you square that? I'm not sure how you've talked yourself into 'we sort of have to accept being relegated from League 1'. I can understand realism, but realism is not a resignation to finishing in the bottom 4 of League 1. That's just extremely low expectations. I might be wrong, but weren't you absolutely fuming when we last got relegated from this league away at Fleetwood? Why the grim acceptance now? I can get being sort of positive about some of the off-field stuff, but we won't be able to afford any of it if we go down and average attendances drop by 1,000.

What has happened to professional football? When I first started to watch Vale in the early 70’s there was the same number of clubs in the professional leagues, thus meaning the same number of centre forwards existed then as they do now. During these times we have always been able to pick up journeymen strikers who would stay with us for about a year or two and move on to ply their trade at another club before they hung up their boots. The likes of (in no particular order) Ally Brown, Ron Futcher, Jimmy Greenhough, Bernie Slaven, Brett Angel, Bernie Wright, Ron Futcher, Ernie Moss, Lee Hughes and I’m sure the list could be longer. Maybe these type of players have been locked away in a secure cupboard with all the white crumbly dog turds never to be seen in Burslem again. I just cannot see this type of player putting on a Vale shirt whilst Flitcroft has his grip on power, his position really threatens a fan’s relationship with the club. All the decent prospects we have will be sold on before they can become our heroes thus diluting the player-fan bond. I really do not want us to be a Crewe type of club, a stepping stone for players on their way to bigger and better things. There might be some money and sustainability in this model but zero identity or connection with the fans.

The long term plan includes three completely flawed ideologies: a) All youth players up for sale. b) Loans in to develop young players for other clubs. c) An "Identity" (we play one way only) This is nonsense. We should be developing our own young players, keeping hold of the best ones and bringing them through when the time is right. Loans are almost always awful and have no long term benefit to PVFC. Arblaster and Devine were very good players but brought their own issues. (Unavailable when kids international duty was on and recalled early when their parent clubs realised it had gone really well for the players) Always playing one way, one system, makes us so predictable. If you have better players than the opposition all over the pitch, fair enough. We don't! All the other teams in this division have strikers that cause our defenders problems and defenders that easily cope with our strikers. Our biggest issue though, d) Rucruitment of players! Carol has, in my opinion, lost sight of what PVFC is. We're a football club. We need to have a football team that the supporters (and the local community) are proud of. Look at how much good the promotion season and the Wembly trip did for everyone in the area! L1 is very poor this season and, if recruitment had been better, we'd be comfortably in mid table now and planning how to strengthen further in the summer. I don't want to overspend on players, but I'd rather have a team of players that can play every game. We've got players like Grant, Cass, Jones, Wilson, Uche, Clarke, etc... who are all injury prone and are only available for a small percentage of the time. Our "back three" must have been chopped and changed more than any other teams defence! We play a different combination every single match and change it several times every game because of injury! If recruitment is an issue, if we're constantly missing our targets, then we're not competitive on wages. The playing budget needs to be a higher priority than many of the things going on in the background. We can get the facilities "Championship-ready" in the summer following our promotion to that level! We're going to have the best ground in L2 next season. Dozens of away fans will be impressed by our fancy scoreboard!

Today summed it up for me. Cheltenham have a crap ground with a small fan base, a poor training facility, poor hospitality and a dodgy pitch, and yet the most important part of the whole set up is the head coach and the 11 players kicking the football about. Last time I looked it said Port Vale football club at the main entrance and David Flitcroft is at the head of that...

It will be a disappointing season but I think we have expect that we're likely to be in and around the relegation mix in this league at the moment unless we overachieve, which is what we should be aspiring to do. Last season we did well. According to Matt Hancock in his Baggers interview our income streams put us below League One. The furore about us struggling in this league just seems a bit over the top, it is hardly outrageous. I think the club are doing a lot of good things and we'll hope to reap the rewards in the medium to long term. Things are getting better. There's a lot that's not perfect, we've made mistakes with recruitment (but I think it has been generally decent under the regime), I think we've now made a mistake with our new manager, and I think it's a mistake to not look at least look at a new ground and get away from the neverending money pit that is Vale Park. I think we just need to be a bit more realistic. The reaction is as though we're heading to non league, I could understand it a bit more if that were the case. I have tried to understand why people are quite so angry about our director of football but I just find it difficult. I'm sorry if I am a bad man for feeling this way but I can't help it.

They weren’t must win games, they were mustn’t lose games. Take a point, keep the goal difference static and most importantly keep our relegation rivals behind us. Crosby had to go, he’d been given more than a fair amount of time. The debacle at Fleetwood was the final nail. Moore has inherited a terrible hand but you can’t argue that the situation wasn’t obvious to him, obviously indicating that he’s got the job next season chance whatever the outcome this. He’s been left shopping in the free agent market so unless someone can pull a rabbit out of the hat we’re still in the same mess.

How many young players were out there and better than those two? We were never going to be able to replace them with better young loan players. We should have changed tactic

When we HAMMERED Blackpool at the years end we were a very healthy 20/1 for the drop.... THAT'S just a very scary 11/8 this morning!! The demise or the speed of it, has been both alarming and inexcusable.....

We need to pack the home ends pretending to be Reading fans, invade the pitch, get them a points deduction. Survival sorted.

For what it's worth it's an absolute scandal that we are having to go back there after the protest and I cannot believe the club have so meekly accepted it. We'll have virtually no support thanks to it being replayed midweek. It should have been played at a neutral venue or behind closed doors at Reading.

Well it's a Tuesday so why do we bother ! Just send someone down with eleven shirts and a washing line probably do as well as the team.

We concede 3 goals when starting with 3 defenders. You intend to improve our defence by playing only 2 defenders! (Sang and Grant couldn't tackle a bag of cement, or win a header against it or stop a cross...)

Exactly I know you put etc so I'll add some of the other names. Cheltenham,Exeter,Burton,Lincoln and Shrewsbury. That's 9 teams who will have a lower playing budget or similar to ours. Maybe Lincoln are a bit out of place in my list as they get 8 to 9 thousand gates. There's something amiss. Unbudgeted for 1/4 final run. Record shirt sales . Reasonable average crowds of maybe 6200 come the season end. Yet we have not been able to attract any players despite our wonderful amazing off field behaviours. 🙄.

If we go down I’d rather they stayed up especially if Crewe go up.

Yes but we nearly signed him, and that is a valid defence of the DoF somehow.

They must be ready to kill their directors if our fans are anything to go by.

We won't bring in another player like those for the next decade. How long is it since we signed players that had that kind of impact? It's not a sensible strategy to hang our hat on.

Until you & your mate came on here, I had no problem with Huddersfield Town FC. Even though you are are nothing club, I use to enjoy our away days at Huddersfield but no disrespect, I hope you get relegated this season

Imagine spending your sunday registering on another club's forum solely to criticise an ex-manager; Does he really live in your head rent free to that extent?

Sports Science strikes yet again.

Exactly. We’ve appointed a new manager, the fans have to back the team. What will be will be. Our league position will ultimately decide.

What an embarrassing post. I had to read 3 or 4 times to see if it was tongue in cheek but it's not

Much of what you say is true but you could easily argue part of DC’s failure was down to the players recruited, or not recruited, under Flitcroft in the January window that season, a trend that’s continued, resulting in the departure of another manager. The recruitment team have had 3 transfer windows to address our lack of goals and have failed. That’s a bit longer than you and your flat, which I hope works out by the way. We can appoint the very best manager but then also have a duty to give him the tools to do the job. We failed to do that for DC, failed again for Crosby and failed Moore by appointing him immediately after the window has shut. It’s gross mismanagement, reactive rather than proactive which shows a lack of planning. When you start churning managers plus all their staff it costs significant money. That money could, and should, have been spent on players, which would improve the team and help keep the manager in a job, not to mention drive revenues in the obvious ways any successful team would see. It’s a fundamental failing, we shouldn’t be depending on the allure of Moore, although I like the sound of that, to attract free agents. It’s desperation. Gayle is linked to Derby I believe? Plus I’ll just point out that Gore isn’t a replacement for Massey. Gore and Wier are stepping into the roles vacated by Arblaster and Devine.

Gore and Weir might have been OK with a preseason but they don't look ready to battle now.

I would say the loan signings are getting worse. Devine and Arblaster out Gore and Weir in, plus Williams from Liverpool who we sacked off without playing.

This game is going to be horrible as we are going to get beat by a not bad Reading side . For me the EFL have made us collateral damage in the Reading mess by not enforcing the rules on a contrived abandonment, but hey that’s the EFL I’m guessing

whether we want him gone or not is irrelevant. im in the out camp but the simple fact is carol wants him here . personally i think if we go down his position is untenable.

16 points after 7 games 31 points after 30 games Where are the points we will need coming from? powder puff up front, no creativity in midfield and goals gifted at the back. Sent from my XQ-CC54 using onevalefan mobile app

Posted the other day. I had a peep at teams remaining fixtures. We have 3 guaranteed defeats Posh, Bolton, Derby . Leaves us needing to win 6 of 13. Cheltenham have played Pompey ,Derby and Bolton twice already. Very favourable fixtures and a team giving their all. Our demise since Northampton at home on September 16th has been shameful. Again. Two seasons running we've had hideous runs. One person to blame for me. The owner.

Responsible for everything that touches the pitch but accountable for none of it.

He was only crap at Huddersfield due teaming up with Kian Harret and having Huddersfield to lose every week ona joint acca. Darren and Kian made a fortune then you sacked him and paid him off, doubled his money again.

Ripley Sang Debrah Lopata Grant Ojo Weir Chislett Wilson Mighten Loft Garrity, Gore, and Clark slot straight into that team when fit.

Unfortunately, you are right mate. The squad aren't arsed, why should the fans be.

I think DM went as instructed yesterday unfortunately, well, I hope so. Yesterday along with Fleetwood were must win games, and we walk away with zero points, because of these results I think we will go down. I reserve judgement on Moore, if he keeps us up then he has done a very good job but personally I would have rather Crosby stay to the end of the season but given a decent striker to get the job done, I don’t think Moore will keep us up with the strike force we have.

There isn't really much you can do if a youth player wants to sign with a Premier League academy. The rules are set. We get a small compensation fee. Nothing we can do about that. However, that does beg the question of why bother pumping money into an academy? We're surrounded by massive clubs, multi-million pound academy operations, including the experts up the road at Crewe. Why would any bright prospect choose us? Even if we do everything right. Of course the best talent we get will leave us. So what does that leave us? Lads at 16/17/18 that were passed up by the top academies at 8 years old, at 10 years old, 12 years old? Still not good enough. Not wanted at 13, no thanks at 14. They were aware of them at 15 but weren't interested. That leaves us with thin gruel in terms of relatively late developers. Personally I'd go with the Brentford, Accrington, Wycombe etc approach and sacking off youth development and putting that money into the first-team and a B/reserve team of 17-24 year olds who've been spat out from academies but can still be those late developers.

Replacing Devine and Arblaster with 2 loan signings as good is nearly impossible. So why let Conlon go in January, so far what I have seen of Weir he is not as good a player as Conlon. Keep Conlon until the end of season then release if need be. One less for DF to cock up, let him concentrate more on bringing a loan striker instead of 2 midfielders.

Gore came with a reputation which was equal to Devine and Ollie. Can't be judged on 60 mins but did not hit the ground running. I agree we needed to change tactic but loaning young players is part of DF masterplan. They won't always come off and we are suffering for that now.

It isn't as though Devine and Blaster got us in the top 6 we were losing games with them here, and when they went on international duty it gave us fixture congestion so I would argue would we have been better off not having them in the first place ? yes it was good to see Blaster on full throttle but in real terms where has it got us ? Just giving other clubs players game time ?

The trouble here is that Flitcroft has created a job so unique to him self that Carol will be thinking how she could possibly replace him. The mumbojumbo that comes out of his mouth is mesmerising, the fact is no one else could do his job because he has created it in his image. He doesn’t care about us fans, in fact he only has to carry on and impress one person, that being Carol. There is no other person in the club she could turn to, certainly not Rudgie, nearing 80, for any football club advice. I was amused by his almost Kremlinesque interview, with the media lad reiterating how busy Flitcroft is etc. Campus, football services, latitudinal progression, foo foo dust.

Possibly ,the most succinct post ever.

I haver never heard Pope's interview or have any knowledge of the content. However the reasons I wish he would leave the club are as Follows. Out of interest is there anywhere I can get to listen to it. 1. He came to interview for a managers job, yet managed to sweet talk himself into a job that didn't exist at the time. Very nice salesman, yet I feel he conned Carol into creating an unnecessary post. 2. He previously managed Bury and was at the helm when he spent out on wages and transfers that he must have known they must have been financially unsustainable for the club. Still he got a promotion on his CV and Bury went bust. 3. It appears he has now decided on what the permanent style of play this club shall play. Even though it has failed badly for the last 2 years. 4. He has been in charge of recruitment for the past 2 seasons and it has been a complete disaster. Our team ended up being propped up by 2 on loan teenagers this season. In the last transfer window all the other teams managed to sign permanent transfers to improve their squads except us. It seems we didn't even have any targets. And to be scrambling about in the final hour was amateurish to say the least. 5. Take a good look at our current squad. Our bench is largely made up of not ready teenagers. The squad is so thin it is laughable. All this is down to David Flitcroft. He has failed miserably in his role. He has to go. I just hope our new manager is able to go his own way with formations, style of play, players etc. Sent from my SM-A528B using onevalefan mobile app