robf

What's Ruben's job? Football agent?

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.

It's interesting that the Brighton fans, on hearing of his loan ending at Blackpool, think he'll never make it there. And that's fair enough, it takes a lot to break into a top PL side. So, you could be right although I guess wages and if there's interest from clubs higher up the ladder would be a big factor.

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?

100% agree.

Rumours that Joe Taylor is off to Lincoln City on loan. Lincoln City agree deal to sign Luton Town star Joe Taylor - Sources WWW.FOOTBALLINSIDER247.COM

I don't think Harratt will be on his way to Vale Park. Firstly, he's injured and secondly when he was injured he was a first-team pick so when he does recover there's every chance he'll get back into the Huddersfield squad.

Yep - but I still reckon Uche had more chances in the Charlton game alone than I've seen Loft have in twenty appearances so it is possible for some of our attackers to be, well, attacking...

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.

I don't think it's as black and white (pardon the pun) as "you must get in early" or "you get bargains if you leave it late" but I would argue the rule is not to panic buy and research your signings in advance. For instance, Harry Charsley (certainly an asset in our promotion run) was a late Jan signing wheras Kurtis Guthrie (certainly not an asset) was an early Jan signing. However, I think in general the list shows that the later you leave it the less quality you seem to get (presumably because you've missed out on your first choices by then) but it's not a hard and fast rule. Last three January windows... First-half of Jan: Chris Hussey, Connor Hall, Ryan Edmondson, Kian Harratt, Kurtis Guthrie, Jake Taylor Second-half of Jan: Matty Taylor, Aaron Donnelly, Sammy Robinson, Harry Charsley, Joel Cooper, Tomas Holy, Mustapha Olagunji, Will Swann I think it's also worth noting that arguably our best Jan signing (Connor Hall) didn't arrive till January 11th so I don't think we should be panicking just yet. It would be good though if next week saw some incoming.

Slightly off topic - Peterborough could net £30m due to a 30% sell-on clause if Ivan Toney moves for the £100m touted. Wow! It just shows the value of inserting a sell-on clause when you sell a player with potential.

Playing Devil's advocate here a bit I don't know whether there's an element of "let's play down a player who may end up at our rivals" with Walters right now. Are Shorrock and Lomax better than Walters? They're all young and inexperienced and that brings inconsistency with it. Each one has had one or two excellent games and then been hauled off early in others. So they've all had both good and bad spells in the first-team. Who knows which of them will have the better/longer professional career - it's too early to tell. However, I think Walters, for a teenager, has been pretty impressive in what I feel is potentially a harder position for a youngster to come into. There's arguably more physicality in central midfield than on the flanks. He's also given glimpses that he's got good awareness and can see a pass. I think he looks a decent bet for the future and I would be disappointed if he did go as I think, on a personal level, he'd have a better chance of a run of first-team football at Vale than at Stoke. However, I do take the point that we can't let contract talks drag on forever...

I can't see Jones going anywhere. He's got another season left on his deal after this one. I'm sure Dan is a lovely bloke and an asset when fit but sadly that's just not been the case. He's had a lengthy spell out in each of the three seasons he's been here. He's made 51 League appearances in two and a half seasons (four this season) which means of the 116 games he could have played in, he's been unavailable for 57% of the time he's been here (even the much maligned James Wilson has a better record - he's been unavailable for 31% of the time). This season Jones has been available for 17% of the League season. With Jones' record (and he's still out now) I can't see anyone wanting to sign him and to release him would mean a big pay-out. I'd be interested to know who thought giving Jones and Grant (with their injury records) two year deals in the summer was a wise plan! Surely one year deal with appearance-based extensions would have been better. They did pretty much that with Wilson.

A Gibbons return makes no sense. Lovely bloke and he was a good player for us but... We have an injury-prone LWB (Grant) plus a RWB (Clark) who is out for some time yet. Both Massey and Sang have picked up knocks recently too. Surely, what we therefore want to bring in if we want cover/competition is someone who is regularly available, not bring back another player who (for all his good points) has a dodgy long-term injury record.

He's reportedly out till some point in the New Year. However, when has anything so incidental as an injury stopped us bringing a striker in!

Never said he was coming for charity - just that with a lot of money in his pocket and not having played for some time, perhaps his wage demands may be closer to our budget than they would have been without a $1m+ windfall.

He got something in the region of $1.2m in wages owed and compensation for breech of contract after taking the Saudi club to court, so perhaps he's not desperate for a huge weekly wage right now? Then again, maybe at his age, he'll just retire and invest it in a new business venture... Report details compensation for former Nottingham Forest ace over summer transfer - Nottinghamshire Live WWW.NOTTINGHAMPOST.COM

Shorrock is only 16 years old, I think we sometimes forget how young he is. It's wrong to think he's close to a first-team start, I agree with that, but he's so young, he's still got time to develop, improve and hopefully push for a first-team spot. I hope this loan move helps.

That's very true. It seems to have been going on for ever and it can't help a player's confidence. I personally think this is a very good idea for Ryan Loft and Gavin Massey: Harry Brook: England batter deletes social media apps to help mental health - BBC Sport WWW.BBC.CO.UK

I think it's kind of a bit of both. I think a confident and in-form Loft would carry a far greater threat but right now he looks completely devoid of any confidence whatsoever. Even back to form, I don't think he's a prolific scorer, and may not be the right striker for our formation, but an in-form Loft may not be getting quite the stick he is now. The problem right now is he's completely out of form but can't be dropped due to lack of alternatives, he's getting less confident as the drought continues and the crowd getting on his back (I'm not having a go at that really, I know there is a deep frustration) probably makes him even less confident. It goes without saying that he could really do with a goal going in off his shin or something, just to stop the rot.

That's a real area of concern for me. While I'm sure Dan Jones and Conor Grant are great people, how on earth do they get two year deals with their injury records? It really ties the club's hands in terms of moving players in and out - if they have two or three players who are regularly unavailable but can't be removed because they are on long contracts. On another note, I would hope a long-term contract for Rhys Walters is a high priority. While it's clear we need a forward and a left-sided player in January, I still think signing up Walters should be up there too. When Arblaster goes back, either in January or at the end of the season then Walters is the obvious choice to take his position alongside Ojo.

Isn't there's some clause (unless it's changed) that allows you to play loaned out youngsters in that competition anyhow? So we could have included him anyhow (presuming the club wanted to). Just as an example of that... in the 2022-23 season, James Plant was on loan at Nantwich Town until the 24th October but despite being out on loan he came on as a sub for Vale in the Trophy game against Wolves U21 on the 18th October.

Port Vale snap up teenage midfielder - onevalefan.co.uk WWW.ONEVALEFAN.CO.UK

100% no. On the pitch: Done very little after being presented with a load of cash this season. Rovers fans say that while he's good at spotting signings he's tactically awful and he has destroyed team morale by picking on individuals (e.g. James Belshaw, Luke Thomas) and publicly castigating them. Off the pitch, he's a liability with regular ill-thought comments to the media and character-wise would definitely not fit into any no d***heads policy.

That delightful chap Joey Barton has parted company with Bristol Rovers Club Statement: Joey Barton - News - Bristol Rovers WWW.BRISTOLROVERS.CO.UK