eh up nah

Booked in for the Hanley gig. £70 bit pricey but I can't see there being too any opportunities to go and see him locally will come up again. Think Manic Street Preachers are playing Hanley this year as well. Good to see some big names playing Stoke-on-Trent again.

Hmmmmmmm That ones left a bad taste Tom.

Yes mate, very good indeed. Pretty much my lockdown album.

Warren Ellis did the Grinderman stuff with him as well. Palaces Of Montezuma would be great in the Regent.

Rob will be happy with Aylesbury. Sure he posted he was into Nick Cave at some point.

I would fancy that, definitely. His last three albums have been class, particularly Ghosteen. Yep, I'll have a look at that. Nice one Hobblesworth!

The time had come for Tom and Vale to part ways, I've got no doubt about that. But comments like "found his level," you must be joking surely? Tom's gone there because its local, he's around lads he knows and he can carry on despite that injury. I can't fault him one bit. As I say, the time was right, but it's just outright disrespectful to have a sly pop at a genuine club legend to come out with comments like that. The guy is our post war record goalscorer and, despite losing some of his presence on the field over the last couple of years of his career, gave his absolute all for the vale in every game. Why stick the boot in? Just don't get it.

Well, I was hoping I could pass you the carrier bag, to pass to DC. We'll be away then.

Brilliant! I really like DF. Really feeling good about the future at vale. I think we always new we were behind the times but, wow, we were light years behind.

Are we paying in cash?

Spot on. Bailey could well become a player in the future but if we're going to use him at all this season it needs to be bits here and there. No way should he be thrown into situations where we're relying on him. Not fair on the lad.

Taylor and Sven were weird managers though. Taylor slightly unfortunate as he took over a squad coming to the end of the line. But he still changed too much and bombed out every old head we had at the same time. And he picked Carlton Palmer! Sven, in my opinion, was a very odd manager. He came to the England job off the back of a title win at Lazio where they won with literally the last kick of the season having spent a gazillion on players that season. The football under him was awful and the utilisation of the players we had was wasteful. He just played every big name player, with no regard for an actual game plan or style. Venables had the character and a bit more of gung ho style. He's as close as we've come to a Redknapp, who people were clamouring for at one stage. I liked him.

Hodgson as an international manager better than Southgate? I can't have that mate to be honest. He got the Swiss job after a mixed career in Sweden. He got them to a last 16 in the USA world cup. Credible to be fair as they'd not qualified for anything since 1966 at the time. But that's it. With England he was an absolute disaster. No doubting it. I think the fact that we were predicted to finish second is largely to do with the setup Southgate has put in place and the performances/results under his tenure. What was our predicted finish in Russia before it kicked off? The fact that we were so fancied after the state we were in five years back is pretty impressive I think. On DC, no, I wouldn't say a 7th favourite side not going up in the playoffs after finishing 7th is a failure. I'd read that as we are the 7th most likely team to go up. Only 4 can and the playoffs is a one off tournament anyone can win. This is just off the top of my head, as I've not seen the odds, but if Salford were the 4th favourites and we both finished 4th and 7th you couldn't call us failures if they beat us in the playoffs using your own logic could you? I will say that if someone offered me 7th for the Vale this season then I would take it.

Wow! I'm thinking you simply don't like the fella. He's got a better record, but he might not be a better manager?!

True Group game though and both teams went home after that stage. I think most Germans would say that was their worst ever period.