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I’ll be sticking to my new pre-match routine for this one. Bacon and tomato oatcakes and a large whisky chaser for breakfast, light lunch followed by 3 or 4 pints, then whatever beer I can fit in up at the fanzone before kick off and at half time. It’s really made a big difference, and whilst I’m not seeing much of the games I’m enjoying them much more.

Exactly. Anyone would think she'd stood up in front of a room of supporters and told them our '3 wins in 29 games' squad of jokers are "phenomenal".

My opinion of the team is that yes, it is poor. However, that's not the main problem. The main problem is its lack of balance and its overall, well, weakness. In nearly 40 years of now supporting Vale, I've possibly seen a poorer team in terms of individual talent, but I have certainly never seen a weaker squad. For the first time that I can ever remember, I cannot name you my preferred starting 11 from this squad. We simply cannot field one that in any way looks adequate. From a fully fit squad, any first 11 contains compromises of players being shoe-horned into positions that they are not suited to nor can successfully play. And that is exactly why I am so damn adamant that this DoF and his recruitment team need to sling their hooks back to obscurity. They have failed and are clearly out of their depth.

I don't think it was coincidence that arguably our real and only purple patch of the season was when Uche got up to speed and was terrorising the opposition defenders. Significantly, the minute he got injured (after the Club was prepared to let him go) that purple patch ended and we've been on a steep downward plunge ever since. Whatever we were paying him was worth it.

I don't understand the logic of that philosophy. Aspire to become a championship club through incremental development, but 'behaving' like one is naïve and simplistic. I'd rather us behave as a professional and ambitious 'whatever league we are in' club, and build from there with a solid foundation.

Our promotion happened a year too soon, didnt allow us to consolidate properly and it has continued to hamper us into this season. If we go down which is looking likely I think we will bounce back quickly and then have a better chance at consolidation in League 1. I do however think that the rebuilding process cannot be allowed to be run by David Flitcroft and in all honesty, i dont think should be done by a director of football at all. Darren Moore has a better CV and better contacts than Flitcroft for a start so Flitcroft's position is not only untenable but also completely redundant. What i would like to see in place is a return to the chief scout role, someone who can oversea the scouting network and report directly to Darren Moore.

Rudgey is nearly 80 and has other things to bother about.

2 and a half games a purple patch?

He wasn’t fit when we signed him, he works on his fitness for 4 months and still cannot pass a medical at 2 clubs. It was a bad buy, our recruitment system failed miserably to the tune of between 3-4 K per week, this has prevented us from bringing else someone in. Then you can add to the fact we kept Wilson where we are lucky (or not, depending on opinion) that he has not had more time off to injury.

Raven, if you describe Jones performance as poor then he’s improving. I think his normal performance is dog 💩

He’s nearly 80 and has no interest in being DOF and I don’t blame him. It’s not going to happen . Why do I know this? It’s because I work for the same organisation as his son and law and we had this conversation in 2019. It’s not going to happen.

Come boys we are all Vale aren’t we ? ⚽️VTID

If it was as simple as that there’s no way we’d be replacing Crosby and his staff with Darren Moore and his, we’d have no choice but to go for a cheaper option. Also, Flitcroft himself said we missed out on countless targets, 9 strikers(?), the vast majority not down to money. In fact in the last 2 January windows we’ve hung on for players until the 11th hour only to see the deals fall through leaving us up 💩creek because we’ve had no contingency plan in place. That’s rank bad planning. There will have been strikers out there to fit any budget, there are rumours that Uche is on a fair wedge plus we seemingly paid money for Loft who the DoF said we’d been monitoring for months. Carol would’ve had little if any say in either deal other than perhaps deciding they were both very nice chaps with all the right values before she signed the cheques.

It's always difficult if not impossible to make cross gererational comparisons. What I will say though, is that I have never in all my years watching the Vale seen a team that has less fight than the current lot. We have had some players, teams even, over the years that were actually far far less technically proficient than the current squad/team, but at least they would generally give it their all, something that sadly you just cannot say about this lot. Everything changes and sooner or later the wheel will turn, I just don't know what league we will be in when it does.

Great post mate that absolutely sums up how the i feel about it all. I sit there constantly watching players struggle in positions there not comfortable in and i cant see how they have allowed this to happen. Even now your telling me there is no free agents that could strengthen us just a little bit we dont even need world beaters at this point just someone who can play in there natural position but they sit back and have done nothing. Ive never felt so disengaged with a vale team in all my life so many forgettable players no characters it just bland. These people this is there job they supposedly spend hours and hours and hours looking into players to fit our system and ethos and this is what they came up with? Seriously?

I think we had some more committed players such as Dave Worrall and James Gibbons but we let them go.

Ill be there too god knows why

Exactly, Rudgie had his success by going out most nights and scouting players. You can't expect a man of 80 to be doing this. For me the modern day system of recruiting players from stats on a players database is lazy and ineffective. Get rid of the D of F role bring in a chief scout/s. Judge players on a number of performances. The stats should only be considered as an addition to how he performs in matches. A friend of mine who referees local league was recently reffing a league teams under 16 game. The players were all wearing performance monitoring vests. Pitchside was a guy with a laptop monitoring all the players. During the game he was giving information on what minutes he should be taking players off. Is this really needed in Youth football. We see this happening week in and week out in league football matches and we have seen ourselves how this has at times had a negative impact on the game. I think too much emphasis is put on these stats. The manager and his coaching staff should be the ones who decide when a player needs to come off.

I think he stays at The Vale he's not going to resign , no way , at the end of the day he's been dealt a piss poor hand by Fraudcrofts shyte recruitment Jürgen klopp wud struggle with this squad, I'm backing DM to turn it around next season but if Fraudcrofts still pulling the strings regarding recruitment we're f###d .

Evil I don't know..... firkin useless definitely lol 🤔🤣🤣

We were fed that line after promotion but after the first season it shouldn’t have hampered us to the extent it has. Not withstanding overall deficiencies in the first team squad, we’ve basically been crying out for a couple of decent strikers since gaining promotion. Proctor and Wilson were never going to play enough games for one thing. If we had 2 forwards capable of scoring say ten goals a piece this current team would be fine, not world beaters but steady enough, simply having that threat takes pressure off the rest of the team. As it is we’ll still need to sign a couple of forwards to survive in League 2 never mind challenge for an immediate return.

I never said I knew every players wages. You have a habit of making things up Bri. I’ve been told by someone who I trust that there is a cap on wages and it is £3k a week. Stop making things up. I don’t serve cappuccino either.👍🏻 I believe them. You don’t believe me. You don’t have to get personal and try to belittle my job when most people would think themselves lucky to do a job they love and one that pays very well. 👌

Who Flitcroft employed. He had been a "performance analyst" until he came to Vale. He became our head of recruitment in July 2022 after a year of recruitment analysis. Since becoming head of recruitment, he has a terrible record of signing players of the required standard, along with with Flitcroft.

Thank you very much for your contribution 🤣

I'm not sure Carol wants us to stay in league one. Probably make more money in league two If we're in and around the top six. Fans will always come an watch a winning team pushing for promotion, and the players will be on lower wages. Winner winner chicken dinner. Think, smurf said something similar when he was un charge.

Avoiding the crap you’ve spurted, Carol has given plenty of support in bringing players in and we have seen plenty of players come in. She has just allowed DF to waste more of her money by bringing in a whole coaching staff - no one can say she hasn’t supported fully those doing their jobs. Unfortunately she has put her trust in the wrong man.

Jones is absolute tripe, as is Debrah.

6k a week

Yes, the man has done wonders for the club , and is a legend. He deserves to enjoy his retirement in peace .

or maybe she's keeping her cards close to her chest and following correct procedure to avoid the possible pitfalls of caving in to the rabid dogs ? .....just to play devils advocate

The person to go should be Fraudcroft and his so called recruitment team. They have made the squad worse.

That's what I am worried about. I think with his own team he can do a decent job. But who would take him in L1 off the back of the end of this season, should we be relegated? He'd have to rebuild his reputation with a strong start to L2 before jumping ship back to L1, surely?

Yes. Has our transfer business suggested we are loaded ?

Is it the same someone that told you that the club is skint, something that you have been repeating on here for a number of months now?

Yes Brian. Of course.

Why the rant only suggesting when you put carol flitcroft it sounded like they had married .ps been golng 50+years and im well pissed off.

Carol always talked about a "5 year plan" to get out of League Two. We did it in the first year. Therefore, if we go back down to League Two, it's still within the plan? That's the only reason I can think of.

Could remortgage my house and put the money on it...

Has it been established that those figures are genuine though? I thought it was just some saddo with a bit of time on his hands dreaming these figures up whilst sat on the toilet with a phone in one hand and a vape in the other.

the majority have taken a far too simplistic view of all this and turned it into a witch hunt , we don't know the complete ins n outs of it and at the end of the day carol isn't daft . fans are right to be concerned given our league position , last weeks meeting was a good clear of the air, i trust carol/kevin etc to make the correct decisions going forward. the vitriol and name calling is just baying mob mentality , successful business people don't cave in or make decisions based on baying mobs .

What would you like to talk about: Stirring on field performances? Latest signings?

He'd be mad to resign and Carol would be mad to sack him. Neither party are likely to do any better.

Carol said she needed someone who understood football to help her run the club. Perhaps she has become over-dependent on DF and wonders what will happen if he isn’t there to lean on. I may be talking absolute rubbish - usually do.

If he keeps us up given where we are right now it’ll be an amazing achievement. I think the 5 year deal was almost an admission from the club that we were likely to go down and gave an assurance to Moore that he’d be given time to rebuild if the worst should happen.

He doesn't watch us every week. If he did, he'd soon change his mind.

He's not exactly ripping it up in league one,he'll probably need to make a name for himself in league 2 at this rate ,dont forget he will have a phenomenal squad to chose from in league 2 🤔 👌🤣

He is going to be disappointed. There will be no takers for a man in League 1 who manages to make a club worse than a novice predecessor like Askey.

I love Rudgey, but really he was always an obvious choice as a DOF and if he was youthful enough to do it, I’m sure he would, but he is pushing 80! Replace the word Fraudcroft with Carol and you’d be equally right. She recruited Flitcroft and doesn’t understand football

Give pro experience to the academy players and haul the so-called leaders and experienced players up and down the country for a few months to watch and get the water bottles. Make it productive in terms of preparing for next season.

Why does Flitcroft have to be part of this. He messed up Bury. He’s now hellbent of messing up Vale