The Kalamazoo Kid

Askey says that having Crookes back will be like a new signing!

Occasionally?.......I'd say its more like the majority! Opposition keepers don't trouble the laundry man when they've been to Vale Park!

Any new chants would be a good change from constant repeats of 'Stand up if you love the Vale'. Once is great but 4...5...6 times a game becomes a bit shyyte!

Noticed at the final whistle that Guardiola gave Amoo a big embrace and had a few words with him. Maybe he sees him as a possible replacement when Sane leaves?!

If there's one criticism of Askey, its his use of (or rather, lack of) substitutions. I wonder in how many of the league games so far that he's used all 3 of his subs?

Even worse than that........what a t0ss day!!!

.............?!?!?!

If that's true then its quite a surprising move. I thought if he went to a League 1 club he might end up starting on the bench for a while, but at Brentford's level then you can't see him getting in their team. Good move for him though to get a Championship club.

Jeff Stelling has just said that Vale have been level at half-time in 19 of the 23 games this season............unbelievable Jeff! That pretty much sums up Vale this season IMO - we can compete with pretty much the rest of the division (there's nothing that stands out in this league), but we've not got enough to get clear of teams - how many games have we won by at least a 2 goal margin? (or on the flip side, lost by at least a 2 goal margin?)

22nd February is the lined-up date for the Fury v Wilder rematch. Looking forward to it. Can't stand Wilder (utterly gobby tvvat, and what's that ridiculous masked walk-on all about?!) so hopefully Fury can get it over the line next time as he was robbed of the decision last time as he took Wilder to school and completely outboxed him, despite getting caught and floored twice. However, as unskilled and 'wild' as Wilder is, he does possess a massively destructive right hand, which at heavyweight can be all that matters I suppose. In fact, there has been talk of him having possibly the biggest knockout punch in heavyweight history, though IMO he wouldn't be in the top 50 heavyweights of all-time, so basic are his boxing skills. As for AJ, a very nice, restrained, accomplished performance tonight. I don't see the merits of a 3rd Ruiz fight though, so he's surely got to angle for the unification fight v the winner of Fury/Wilder.

4672 please.

Wasn't he a referee from the 70s? The one that ref'd the 1974 World Cup final and gave Holland a penalty in the 1st minute, before the Germans had even touched the ball.

This will ruin the Vale Beano fanzine annual calendar!

It won't be the Friday as we'll have both played only 2 days before on the Wednesday (New Years Day), City v Everton in a 5:30pm kick-off. City will also be playing the midweek after our game, in the League Cup semi-final 1st-leg (assuming they beat Oxford in the Quarters). You would think they'll put out their strongest team for both of the above games, so will probably rest most/all for our game sandwiched in between.

Hope that Pope starts in this as heard him on the radio earlier, saying that he's never had chance of a big cup game, except for playing at Liverpool when he was 20, and that its seemed he's always had the likes of Exeter away. He certainly deserves it after Saturday's heroics. Having this on the horizon should also hopefully concentrate the players to (continue to) perform over the next month to ensure they're in the team for The Etihad.