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I may be being overly simplistic but I see it as: Infrastructure improvements - great to have A competitive, balanced first-team squad - must have In order of priority: 1) First-team squad 2) Infrastructure I'm also surprised that when other clubs in similar positions were clearly able to bring in experienced strikers (Lyle Taylor to Cambridge say, or Mo Eisa to Exeter) these moves appeared to raise no alarm bells and no change of plan. The club seemed to stay in its bubble of - let's wait and see what happens / wait till bigger clubs make signings and get their offcasts / look at the PL2 market / wait till deadline day - almost as if adding another striker was a nice thing to have, not an absolute essential. Where were the alarm bells once Uche had been injured? Why, if these other clubs are paying over the odds for Taylor, Eisa etc, did we not react and see if we could move some of the budget from other things to the playing budget and pay over the odds to ensure we get the right player in? Perhaps there was no budget to move, but the attitude after failing to sign anyone seems to be for the club to have shrugged its shoulders and say "Oh well, we missed out on some targets" as if it's a slight mishap rather than something that could seal relegation. Why does the club appear to not have learnt any lessons from the previous transfer windows? This is a club that on the 1st August had one senior striker in Ellis Harrison. A club who started the previous season with one fit, senior striker in Jamie Proctor. A club who waited till the very final day in January 2023 to add an injured striker despite us having no fit strikers at the start of the year. Yes, we all get it's difficult to get a striker in. We realise there's a load of factors to getting someone in - but other clubs seemed to manage to do so. You won't get very far if you continually repeat the same mistakes every window.

Anyone who wants to see the potential impact of relegation, take a read of this thread from Accrington's chairman: Long story short: - Relegation disastrous - Cost the club £1m a year - ST prices up to meet shortfall - Playing budget cut to meet shortfall The decision of Carol and Flitcroft to faff about creating 'Championship Ready' infrastructure before we had an established squad of steady League 1 players, with a manager to match, will end up destroying all of the long-term plans they were so excited for. It smacks of inexperience, a chairwoman and a DoF both in their roles for the first time, trying to replicate what the big clubs do without a proper grasp of the risks. A bloke who was working 2 days a week until recently was given full control of the football operations. Yes men (or family/friends) everywhere. More critical employees like Garlick jettisoned without ceremony. Prices will go up, budget will go down, and attendances will drop to reflect this - creating a vicious cycle. There isn't going to be a T-Zone and Campus if revenue is down £1m+ and there has to be cuts everywhere. We won't be able to build a data-driven recruitment model with top-class facilities and links with the top academies. Food for thought for those serenely accepting relegation and thinking we'll come 'straight back up'. We simply have to stay up and reorient the entire club to improving our league position next year. Stuff your campus.

Wanting a complete squad and for us to have the players where we can actually compete against the likes of Carlisle, Fleetwood and Cheltenham are not unrealistic expectations.

I'm not keen on calling Lopata 'Pole'.

Optimism post as I cannot hack the despair: There is a route to safety for us. We still have to play: Reading away Burton away Fleetwood home Shrewsbury home Exeter home Cambridge home There is a route out for us. We need 19 points from 16 games. 5 wins and a few draws. Priorities: - sort the back line out. 1 clean sheet in 10 is absolutely horrendous. Tighten things up. Clark at RWB over Massey is a huge upgrade. We need a fairly rapid improvement in this respect. It really needs a back to basics approach. Lopata, Smith, Debrah, Yak, Lowe - there has to be a competent combination somewhere. Pick one and don't chop and change. - Garrity back in the middle. Garrity and Chislett are our only goal threat. Having them together actually gives us some hope going forward. - Take a punt on a free agent forward. We have no one who can hold the ball up. Just pay the going rate and pray they can plunder 5 by May. It'll cost more to go down. - Start playing Mighten. We don't have any pace. He's the only player. Figure out a system that gets him the ball. - Get Gore fit. We haven't seen him but he's the exact profile we're missing - energy and battle in the middle. The point total we need is really not outlandish - it's mid-table form and would play out as 54 points over a 46 game season. Moore needs to transform a very, very poor side (the worst in the league by a considerable margin since Christmas) into a fairly competent mid-table one - which is pretty much the job DC has done at Cheltenham. Martin Paterson similarly at Burton. Harris at Cambridge. You'd assume a manager who last put up 96 points at this level could handle that - otherwise, why appoint him? Even with how awful we've been, the Fleetwood result was the only aberration since New Year - a draw with Charlton, a very narrow loss via a penalty to the champions-elect, Fleetwood, a loss to in-form Orient with a youth team manager on a half hour's notice, a draw with top 6 Stevenage, a 1 goal loss to a very, very decent Cheltenham side under DC. Pompey, Orient, Stevenage, and Cheltenham were all in excellent form when we played them. Fleetwood and Carlisle are the only disasters since Shrews away in November. I don't think it's a miracle great escape job. We only have 4 games against the top 6, and one of those is Oxford who are not the same side under Buckingham that they were under Manning. We've got a load of games against mid-table teams like Wigan, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, Exeter, Burton, Rovers, and Orient - teams we have taken points from under Crosby. Moore's basically got to make us a mid-table side. He has Garrity and Clark fit very soon. Gore and Plant soon thereafter. If he tightens up the backline, we get a forward in, and these players get back in the starting lineup, we have a fixture-list which isn't overly tricky. 19 points is very doable. Carlisle and Fleetwood are probably gone. It's 2 more of us, Charlton, Cheltenham, Reading (watch out for more points deductions), Shrewsbury, and imo Burton. I think Cheltenham will be fine. Shrews and Burton are both pretty poor teams with some of the worst underlying numbers in the league. Nathan Jones is known for either being brilliant at Luton or truly apocalyptic everywhere else. He hasn't won yet and the atmosphere is toxic. I know how dismal it has been recently, but we're really not down and out yet. We have to start winning games very soon at a mid-table rate, but I don't think it's overly harsh to say that is what is expected from a manager like Moore. He has key players returning, a fairly achievable points target, and a reasonable fixture list. Very doable job, this. It will genuinely be disappointing if Moore can't put up 19 points. Into these.

But if you read my post on Bell, for years it was first team first. During the JR glory years. Things fell apart when he deviated from that and put the Lorne St stand first. When he didn't put the team first

I personally think some of the business the club has done has been bonkers! January 2023 transfer window failure! Clarke sacked in April January 2024 transfer window failure! Crosby sacked in Feb Supporters starting to walk away, the club is in absolute freefall, the only hope we have is getting a couple back fit and bringing in a couple of out of contract players. We have been completely let down, the letter from Carol and the podcast from the club with Flitcroft, is sticking two fingers up at the supporters. The very supporters that have followed this club for generations, that are the lifeblood of this club, no good having swanky sports hubs at Dimensions, or incredible community groups helping local people, if ultimately the prime business of football is neglected. The club haven't even updated the staff page this morning its still showing the previous manager assistant manager, coach, and goalkeeping coach down as in charge. Staff | Port Vale WWW.PORT-VALE.CO.UK The supporters deserve better, this is shambolic and it needs addressing pretty damn quick or we are going down Flitcroft Out! (no bullying intended)

Just listened to the latest DF Podcast, confirmed my thoughts from the fans forum. DF speaks with confidence and conviction and could easily "talk the hind legs off a donkey" so to speak. However, having met many people in industry over the last 40 years who spoke in a similar vain when promising the earth and trying to re-invent the wheel, I am left feeling very sceptical indeed. This could be due to my lack of self belief or could be due to many years experience of similar characteristics and living in the real world. He talks of Crosby being set targets and not meeting them. Who set DF's targets - Carol? If so it seems that these were of a financial (profit based) nature rather than success in terms of recruitment and success on the pitch (as per Crosby). He again talked of 6/7 scenarios in the January window regarding striker recruitment, mentioning on many occasions that we were "close". If this was the case and the previous 3 windows followed a similar trend, then from around 24-28 attempted signings we made x2 (Thomas/ Taylor). If Crosby failed to deliver on his target which I assume was points by December (say 25 games) then DF has obviously not been set recruitment targets 'on the pitch', merely to maximise current profit via youth on/ off the pitch. Profit from the 'Campus' must be high on his checklist too. I still can't get it out of my head to not recruit a striker of any note in two years - IS FAILURE in anyone's book. Fundamental errors (or a plan to cut costs) have resulted in us having a considerably weaker sqaud in key positions imo. If I'm honest, Ripley, Chislett and OJo have been an improvement but there has been a decline in wing-back positions for sure. I hope I'm wrong and yes, I so want to be but I am yet to be convinced. Darren Moore is a proven manager but he surely will struggle with this squad. Moan over. You reap what you sow in football.

Can you tell me what 'daft levels' is? What have you seen fans expecting which is daft? Mid-table League 1 is a position that an incompetent, dangerous buffoon like Norman Smurthwaite had us finishing with ease. I look at Exeter, Northampton, Lincoln and don't see any reason why we can't be in a similar position. Properly reflect on this, Rory. You're a sound bloke who seemingly has given up on any hope of PVFC doing anything decent.

Biggest problem for me is the total lack of character & personality of the players, doesn’t matter who the manager is if the players don’t care or simply don’t want it enough. We are constantly told by Flitcroft et al about how much work & due diligence goes into getting the right characters at the club, so where are they !!

Absolutely no chance of stopping up in fact unless we win either tomorrow or Saturday then I would expect Carol to start making plans/budget for league 2. Oh and Connor Ripley does not deserve back to back relegations. 99% of our clueless fans (me included) warned and screamed and shouted that we were sleep walking back to league 2 but nobody listened !!!

On a different tact, I also think the contract lengths given out are a real cause for concern and something that the club needs to get right in the future. To explain...we all think this summer will be a crucial one for the club to strengthen. To do that we surely need to wheel and deal. However, the following players are all contracted until the end of next season - Conor Grant, Alex Iacovitti, Jason Lowe, Ryan Loft and Dan Jones. Arguably some of those would be released if not under contract. There's also some players you probably would want to keep who are under contract to the end of next season (and beyond) - Nathan Smith, Funso Ojo, Connor Ripley, Ben Garrity and Ethan Chislett. There's also Mitch Clark, Tom Sang, Jesse Debrah, James Plant (and the graduates from the youth team) under contract until at least the end of next season. Right now, I think the only players out of contract will be Jayson Leutwiler, Gavin Massey (not certain as he signed when the club didn't disclose contract lengths) and James Wilson (possibly Uche if he exercises a release clause). That really ties our hands in what we can do in the summer as ideally you'd like to do what we did in 2021 and do a clear out following by a number of new signings. However, what we have is the majority of this squad - 15 out of 18 senior players (I'm not including the youth team graduates) - that will not be moving in the summer unless we decide on a mutual termination and/or someone makes a bid. So, if you think the squad isn't up to it this season - well, surprise, surprise, most of them are likely to be around next season too! Where does this contract problem lie - again, for me, it's with the recruitment team. Unless the playing budget increases, we're going to find it really difficult to do anything radical in the summer if there's only three players released at the end of their contracts. For instance, should Wilson and Uche both leave in the summer, which is not unreasonable, it could be another striker-less Groundhog Day in August 2024.

Looking forward to getting Clark and Garrity in particular back into that team. We lack grit, passion and a bit of good old fashioned s**thousery, and both have that in them.

Exactly this. I can only speak for myself, but, when we were beating Everton, Man City, Sjoke, to name but a few, I couldn’t give a flying flamingo about the state of the bogs, or anything else,, other than what we were being treated to on the pitch. Different times, of course, but it all started with Kevin Finneys late winner against Macc, followed by the £3k that Rudgie paid Rhyl, for Mr.Andrew Jones. One day, hopefully when it's not too late, someone with a bit of influence at the club, will get out of bed one morning and say ''Oh yeah, I can see now what will get the fans in to the ground" I can tell them for free, that it isn't to prioritise 3rd party infrastructure, in cart before the horse fashion.

My bet would still be Troy Deeney. Been around the block, bit of a prickly character on the pitch and puts himself about. Got 4 goals for Forrest green so better than any of our current lot and must be fairly fit. Let’s face it, it’s stick or twist time and there isn’t much in the pack. Deeney is exactly the type we need atm, a fighter. Moore has to ruffle a few feathers and hope he gets a response.

The quickest way to increase revenue is to have a successful and entertaining product on the pitch this increases attendances,Merchandise,advertising etc which then gives you the funds to improve infrastructure not the other way round. I applaud Carol & the board for their long term vision and agree with them ( apart from the style of play which is boring ) but we have to get our priorities in the right order.

I think, Rory, you seem to take relegation to League 2 as part and parcel of being a Vale fan - which completely removes any agency from the people who run the club. It's just natural forces at work. Newton's 5th Law - Port Vale must be relegated every so often to the fourth tier. What can Flitcroft do in such a situation? Of course, the reality is that we made a bad appointment in the summer, and then through chasing daft targets failed to meet the publicly-stated aims of the transfer window, before panic-sacking that very same manager about 3 months too late. This isn't just the natural vicissitudes of PVFC, but poor decision-making by the DoF. If we'd done everything right and still gone down, then I'd be more aligned with you, but it seems to me that the bloke upstairs has made a series of quite bad decisions for other 12 months, and that's why we'll possibly get relegated - not just the tides of fortune correcting us to our natural place. We've put the cart before the horse, talking of loads of high-end stuff without ever forming a competent League 1 squad. Competence would keep us up. We shouldn't have appointed Crosby, shouldn't have left it till early Feb to sack him, we should have signed a left sided player and a forward in January as Flitcroft announced we would, and we should have made survival and consolidation the number 1 priority before talk of El Presidentes, Campuses, and T-Zones. These aren't hindsight, retrospective targets (which Carol seems to love), but stuff the average fan has been banging on about for ages, before getting told off by a letter. If they saw these mistakes coming, why should it be accepted that we're relegated as a result of them?

What's the point in being Championship ready if we're slumming it in L2? Last season people could argue that we may well of been unprepared but we survived. There's no excuse for us not to have kicked on this season though. Flitcrofts poor decision making's cost us big time & is the reason we find ourselves in the relegation zone.

Nobody is saying we should be so high in league 1, but no way should we be hanging on for our lives either. There’s 2 teams below us bloody Carlisle & fleetwood who have both done a job on us this season. We should be competing along the lines of teams such as Burton, Cambridge, Northampton to mention a few at the very least!

You used to be so sensible, mate. There's a middle ground between 'soaring high in League One' and 'making peace with being relegated'. I'm not sure a single fan expects us to be soaring high. An improvement on 18th is a very fair expectation for this season. Anything below that is a disappointing year. I think most fans would have been pretty pleased with 14th. I'm not sure how some fans have had their expectations realigned to the point where relegation from the third tier is acceptable.

I think it's very understandable when we've won 3 in 22, been pretty crap for over a year, have no functioning strikers, and failed to beat any of our relegation rivals. I certainly felt the same Saturday night. However, if Moore can tighten up the defence then we've got a really decent chance. 5 wins.

To put it more succintly, with Garrity and Clark I think we can beat: Burton Fleetwood Exeter Shrewsbury Cambridge Leaving us needing probably 4 draws from the other 11 games, including Reading, Orient, Northampton, Wigan, Bristol Rovers, and Lincoln. We're nowhere near down and out.

The Pole is called Lopata and he's the pick of our defence at the moment.

You're right, left back it is

We effectively tried to revolutionise the club in an 18 month spell, with absolutely no one at the club having any experience of successfully doing a similar thing elsewhere. There were no dissenting voices, and the entire decision-making structure was Shanahan Family, Synectics, and Flitcroft (until Hancock was promoted recently), with Garlick and a lot of the pre-Carol staff removed (rightly or wrongly). The man pulling most of the strings was on a 2-3 day week until a few weeks ago. It isn't really a surprise they've got it wrong. I don't think anyone is suggesting that their intentions were bad, but they were trying something fairly large, fairly quickly, without anything to guide them and without anyone stopping any of the daft stuff. The transition they were talking of, of data, play-style, pitches, facilities etc, should have taken place incrementally over 5-10 years, always balancing results on the pitch and being prepared to invest more on the playing side if things looked dicey. They also perhaps should have identified the key bits of the identity of PVFC (hard-working, aggressive) and retained those amidst the change. Alas, lessons learned I hope. I sincerely hope we're in League 1 to right the wrongs, as it will be significantly more tricky on a League 2 revenue.

I never said in my post that the things they wanted to do were wrong. Far from it, I actually said the infrastructure changes would be "great to have" and I think some of them sound amazing. I admire the long-term thinking (but the key words in that sentence are "long" and "term"). As my post says, it's the order of things that I think is wrong. Get the first-team picture right (and we saw that for spells under Billy Bell) and that success allows you the leeway to make gradual infrastructure changes as well. Arguably Bell's reign came to an end when rather than smaller scale, sustainable projects he took away a load of the first-team budget to start the LS work. In that he also tried to run before he could walk.

They may be but I think the other reason to mention it was in the open letter there were loads of mentions of the infrastructure projects in order to justify David Flitcroft's role. However, surely his first priority, regardless of budgets, is to make sure the playing side is fit for purpose. We're having a new door fitted at this very moment. If they came to me and said - we've removed the old door and taken it away, we've tidied up but unfortunately we've not fitted the new door, then while they've done some other useful things, they've failed in their fundamental first and most important task* *important note - I sincerely hope this won't be the case today - or there will be no five star review from me!

Spot on Rob. I do think we are quite arrogant and ignorant as a club typified by our DoF which is what’s turning fans off and making some feel disconnected. Our approach in the transfer market is a reflection of our arrogance. Points are Sanity Our projects are Vanity. I know as a club where we are focused.

Whoever, however, got to show doggedness and start playing for the club and its fans.

It does seem there is a concerted effort to convince the fans that DF is doing a good job. If they just focused on winning games of football, we'd all agree.

It goes silent after YNWA. People bang on about our atmosphere but the reality is that most clubs suffer from poor atmospheres when their team is bad. Cheltenham were bang up for it as a fanbase on Saturday as they'd won 2 in a row and have been in very decent form for months. Our team has been pretty rubbish for over a year. If we win games again, it'll improve. We're no different from any other club in that respect.

I have just listened to the Ale and Vale Podcast in which Bezza summed Saturday up as Men against Boys. All so called Carol and Flitcroft fans let that sink in ! We were playing CHELTENHAM TOWN That just sums up our current situation. We have won about 12 Games out of the Last 50 or thereabouts. Vale Supporters deserve better, far better ! I wish Flitcroft no Harm but he hasn’t got a clue when it comes to Recruitment. Garrity,Ripley and the Two Loan Signings who we have now lost are the only successes. How many more are really good enough, Ojo but he tends to spit his Dummy Out when it suits. We decide to play with Wing Backs but only sign one. who has been injured. We sign players who are injury prone not one or two but half the squad. We have kept being told we have a Fit and Close Knit Group, Really ? We continually sign Players and make them worse, they do it at other clubs but not for us. Players are picked out of Position etc.etc ! Darrell Clarke has proved at Cheltenham that he can manage at League One Level with average players, it makes you think what a Shambles on the Pitch,we currently are ! Where was the Passion and Fight on that Pitch on Saturday apart from 3 or 4 Players. They then come on Social Media and on Interviews and apologise and say we have to be Better then go out and get Worse. At Least Crosby apologised after Poor Performances, Moore couldn’t even do that. Moore is just another Flitcroft Lap Dog. All this I feel Proud to be the Manager of Port Vale, what when he’s managed in the Premier League etc. He saw the vision of our Director of Football and was aligned with it. A Manager sacked after winning 3 out of 23 gets a 5 and 1/2 Year Contract at a League One Club, what a load of ******** The only ones showing any Passion at Port Vale at the moment are the Fans. I would have hired a manager based on Results, on a Year on Year Contract. Any Manager worth his Salt would do that, like Nigel Adkins. I wish Moore well and hope he can manage to keep us up but I wasn’t exactly impressed with his after match Interview on Saturday, it was Cringeworthy like the Team’s Performance.

It’s either Sang or Massey. After Saturday I don’t think Massey deserves to play.

Thank the Lord someone can offer something other than unrelenting misery and pessimism. There's a long long way to go yet.

Personally, even if we go down, I don't think we will come back up. Teams that could be in that league next season are bigger and stronger than us. Their budgets will be much bigger too

Even a player short we would have a chance

To be honest, even though we have had soundbites about chasing free agents - Im not convinced we are chasing anyone (other than opposition shadows on the pitch🙈🙈🙈 )

Has he gone yet ?

We'd also won 1 in 12 league games and were one of the worst League 1 teams throughout 2023. It was 10 days before Christmas, and 3 days before said quarter-final which had inflated ticket prices (again, just before the most expensive period of the year). Our average attendance last year was 7,500+. Surely that is sufficient evidence that success on the pitch leads to higher attendances?

Ask Luton which they prefered to be prioritised.

No Rory, we just want transparency and ethics. No more BS.

Daft levels? as in finishing about 18th?

I dont care who is the manager is if we continue to stick with 3-5-2 when it clearly doesnt work we are down. Its insanity . Like why not try changing it. Listen we could change and still be equally as <ovf censored> but surely its worth changing and atleast seeing. If anything it will cause reading trouble as they wont have prepared for it

Poor recruitment full stop is the reason 👍

Not only vital that the tide turns in the next month for our survival, but in around 4-5 weeks the club will be announcing season tickets no doubt.

Completely pointless appointment if everything stays the same. Hope I’m wrong. I would expect Darren Moore to make some changes after that on Saturday

You'd like to think so. Suppose we will see tomorrow night [emoji848] not holding me breath tho

I have never seen a poster miss the point on basically everything like you do. Who said that we should be soaring high in League One?

We don’t play our lads in there natural or most effective positions mate

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!