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Hitcher
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Posts posted by Hitcher
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3 hours ago, robf said:
I would imagine the last one was Lucas Covolon wasn't it?
I think certainly recent seasons (especially the influx under Askey - Kieran Kennedy, Fitzpatrick, Trickett-Smith, Rawlinson, Callum Evans, Jordan Archer, Jonny Maddison the list goes on) may have skewed some opinions (perhaps deservedly) on concentrating too much on non-league 'bargains'. That list shows you need decent scouting to select the wheat from the chaff. However, the likes of Peterborough have shown it can be done if you do it properly and pick out only the top prospects.
For me, I wouldn't want to see a sudden influx of half a dozen non-league players like Askey brought in, but I wouldn't be unhappy if the club bring in the odd one to see if they can develop them.
Crikey. It's mad how much I've erased from my memory. Makes you much more grateful for what we have now.
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Our most recent dip into non league was Deborah who is big, quick and strong with potential to improve with better coaching.
Before that was the last non-league player Rodney? I know we got him from Salford but had been on a succession of national league loans. Anyway think we had the same approach with Rodney in that we thought he had a physical edge and could develop the rest.
Just saying that unless a non-league player is wildly talented and somehow gone under the radar they'll probably have an outstanding physical attribute - Pace (young vardy), Strength (Deborah), Size (Hudlin).
Occasionally you get a player like garritty rise up through sheer grit, determination and desire.
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9 hours ago, Trumpingtonvale said:
Possibly sliding doors moment last summer ? If we’d been successful signing him would we have still signed the Blaster and/or Devine, changed the way we play etc..
We had some poor loans last season, so I imagine Weir would have been near our first pick seeing as he had already answered the question that he can play in league 1 with a good season with Morecambe.
Hopefully Weir goes well for us so we can prove that Arblaster thriving wasn't a fluke.
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7 minutes ago, valeparklife said:
I believe it expires in the summer.
didn't Flickers say something about targeting these types of loans where their contract is nearing an end?
I remember him saying that a season or two ago, but that was when we were signing less good loan players.
Think we're now mostly pitching ourselves as a good vibes introduction to men's football for talented prem youngsters now.
Interesting that we tried for Weir in the summer. Anyway I hope he does well for us
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Jenson Weir is 21 and on his third consecutive loan to a league one club.
Does anyone know much about his contract situation as has the feel of a signing we could make permanent if he enjoys his time here.
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19 hours ago, Warren said:
Bradford City are an enigma. Clearly are a bigger and better supported club than Port Vale. But massively under achieving in L2. Surely, they want to assemble a promotion team. If they are going to sell a goal scorer they should only do so for a large fee. Bradford's average attendance is 17,855 this season.
Are Bradford season tickets still insanely good value?
I seem to remember they had one season with £100 season tickets and have had high attendances since.
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21 minutes ago, Iron Curtain said:
That American lad we tried to sign but couldn’t get a visa for has just posted this
Glad all over?
Be such a weird twist if he comes back.
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2 hours ago, saintvaliant said:
Burnley have recalled a lad from Barnsley who plays LB/LWB due to lack of game time.
You would hope that we are in the market for a LB/LWB given that Shorrock is a kid and Grant has been a real let down.
Grant isn't quick enough for me. The way we play you need quick athletic wingbacks to get higher up the pitch and contribute offensively. It's a bit like when we had hussey who had a great left foot but just seemed to slow the team down as the other team knew he would never beat them for pace or dribble round them.
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40 minutes ago, EricHamesis said:
I'd be very disappointed with that. What would £500,000 buy us? Some bloke who can't get in the Peterborough team and would want twice that in wages?
Suicidal if the club accepted.
Kinda figured that if Clarke Harris is £800k and he was last season's golden boot, that garritty wouldn't be worth more than that.
I agree with you though in that it'd be really hard to replace garritty. You don't get many midfielders that score as much and are as good as ratting. It's normally the tricky winger or attacking flair centre mids that get the most goals. Garritty kind of has a lampard ability to arrive in the box, but with cult hero levels of work ethic.
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1 minute ago, werstayinup said:
I would fully expect a bid to come in for Garrity,it's if we can resist it or not
What would you value him at?
Or a better way of phrasing it, what fee would we have to achieve to not be disappointed? For me I think that's £500k + add ons.
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You'd like to think Tottenham would have been as upfront on Devine as Sheff U were on Arblaster. Hopefully we can keep him as he's really come into his own in the last few games.
Interested in everyone's thoughts on this. Is Devine a better player than Arblaster? Personally I think Devine has a much higher ceiling. He can walz through games and ping a ball beautifully.
Its difficult to explain but I feel like Arblaster has a humbleness and likeability of being a young northern lad just loving playing footy. His playing style is all action box to box which is always a hit with the fans.
With devine I think as he's always been a high talent on a guilded pathway there has been a touch of arrogance and almost a sense of 'how have I ended up at port vale'. You can see him trying to do stuff and other players are just not on his wavelength. However as each game passes there seems to be less of that and he's beginning to influence games.
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Playing 2 up top forces us to get the ball forward quicker as there are less options in midfield for pretty triangles. With devine, and Ojo when he is back, we do have two players capable of playing very accurate passes into feet. Let's see where this leads. It does rely on Uche having a good game but the guy seems up for it.
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On the upside atleast it's a clinical decision at the start of the transfer window.
Now let's wait and see whether having a really successful loan spell and having developed a player helps us land another top talent on loan. Well that's the theory anyway.
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I know we had a dreadful run, but you can't fault 7 points out of the last 9 available.
We are a much better team when our better players play. Looks like we were crap in midfield today, but scored an equaliser when our most talented striker came on. Football can be simple some times.
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I would like to see us stay up without a last minute panic and develop some of our youth players for next season.
It'd be great to see plant play in his proper position, get Walters signed on a 3 year deal and keep giving him game time.
We play more passing football this season but how much of that is because of Arblaster and Devine? Be good to start see us build a decent team that we own. For me loan players should be a something extra, but this season they are our backbone.
Just gradual progress really. Be great to become a team like Peterborough. I don't think there is much difference in fanbase. Just that they've been through a lot more cycles of getting good players, selling well and reinvesting. We are just starting that journey.
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Stoke still have the legacy of over inflated parachute payment contracts. There just seems to be so much waste and they can never quite get cohesive.
They won't like this but because of all that waste they are a 'selling club'. Anytime a good player emerges they will get sold to take the edge off all that waste. As a consequence they will never build anything and be in a constant cycle of being beige, unlikable and average. All the while their fans are expecting more because of their budget.
As a new manager how do you tackle that sense of pointlessness and drift?
It's really tricky to do so onward they march, chewing up and spitting out another middle of the road manager in the process.
The only thing that will help them is to get relegated as it will force their hand in stripping out all the lard/fat. We've seen this over the years with teams like Southampton and Ipswich going through a phoenix club style rebirth. Personally I hope they stay up and their fans are in a constant state of frustration and angst. Hilarious
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On 12/12/2023 at 12:53, Hitcher said:
Walters won't get more game time then he will with us.
He's still to young and raw to instantly improve a rival league one team.
Does he really want to sign for a championship team and sit in the reserves?
Surely a deal with us makes sense.
On another note I had the opportunity to see a Bath City Vs Yeovil game the other week. Bath had this young winger 'Thomas' who was head and shoulders above everyone on the pitch. Skillful, speed and end product. Noticed he was in the VNS team of half season too. Wouldn't be surprised to see him in higher leagues soon.
Quoting myself is weird but that Thomas lad is being scouted by Bristol City, Cardiff and Swansea.
I know articles likes this are 10 a penny but 23 scouts watching him at a recent game and tearing it up in VNS.
I reckon Championship too big a jump. Worth a look though.
Cardiff, Swansea and Bristol City race for non-league sensation Thomas
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2 hours ago, Fosse69 said:
If a player is clattered or over-stretches and cant run it off, who makes that decision?
The manager. That's reacting to an injury and not making a proactive decision to prevent one
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This is a one sided debate in that we see the consequences of sports science when we follow it, make subs and lose a game.
The truth is the upsides are less obvious in that we'll never applaud a player remaining injury free as that's the norm or the expectation.
Having said that I do agree it can feel we are too tilted towards the science. If that whole approach is managing the risks of injury, we should also balance that by pushing it at the margins to win games.
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I'll probably get pelters for this but I feel like fan culture nowadays only allows people to be 'overjoyed with happiness' or in 'the depths of despair'.
Quite often recently I've felt that we've all been overreacting, but losing from 2-0 up and then from 3-2 is very very poor.
I do buy into the idea of trying to play possession based football and the reasons for it:
- Teams playing possession football more likely to be promoted
- Allows us to develop technical youth players with higher sale value
- Enabled us to attract Premier league youth players on loan.
However it has kind have been sold to us that Andy Crosby is required to run that. I have no doubt that he is a good coach, but I think we are seeing he doesn't yet have the 'in game' management that comes with more experience. How often when we had DC in his pomp would you see him flip a game on its head (often preemptively). In fairness to AC the injury crisis hasn't given him much to play with on the bench.
If we are stuck to our model are we not better off hiring high potential 'flowing football' managers with a bit more experience. If they succeed and get poached it means we have had a good season. I know we'd draw from a pool of lower league managers but the type of thing Swansea used to do where each manager fitted and developed on a consistent style of play.
A final point in defence of AC, but subs last night did feel very much in line with the number of games we have this month. I am gutted about losing out on the cup money but if it helps us get a win against Wigan is it wrong?
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Walters won't get more game time then he will with us.
He's still to young and raw to instantly improve a rival league one team.
Does he really want to sign for a championship team and sit in the reserves?
Surely a deal with us makes sense.
On another note I had the opportunity to see a Bath City Vs Yeovil game the other week. Bath had this young winger 'Thomas' who was head and shoulders above everyone on the pitch. Skillful, speed and end product. Noticed he was in the VNS team of half season too. Wouldn't be surprised to see him in higher leagues soon.
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It's ok. We'll smash Exeter 7-0, Loft will score a perfect hat trick and Uche will score a panenka penalty.
We'll take that confidence into our league games, go roaring up the league and everyone will be clambering for tickets.
No problemo.
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This is going to sound bonkers, but as long as we stay up, I don't mind that we are trying to play a more technical type of football.
In the long run I can't see how we could get promoted to the championship playing reactive, hit on the break football. Occasionally you get a freak team that do, but on the whole all the teams that go up control possession and are more technical. I think the club want that style of play as any youth players we develop who play nice football have more chance of a higher sale fee. It also helps with attracting high potential loan players which is something we are seeing this season.
Things are really rubbish right now in the league and that needs to change soon. However I'm not yet at the point where I think we need to rip up all the progress that has been made, sit back and go more direct. Like it or not we are stuck with our current strikers till January. Would a new manager be able to do more with our current strikers?
I think it's clear from some of the interviews earlier in the year we got priced out of top tier strikers and invested more in midfield instead. Is that Crosby's fault? Or is that the constraints of being a mid sized league one team.
Final thought but we fixed the goalie situation this season, after realising we got it completely wrong last season. Maybe the same will happen with a striker in January/next summer. I think the reality is that it is probably really hard to get everything right at once. As long as we don't go backwards in the next window I think we'll be ok. I'm still with Crosby for now.
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I expect we will look for another high calibre youth as a loan for LWB in Jan.
No idea where we are with our budget but why would it be different from last season where we said we didn't want to make many signings in Jan.
I'm fully bracing myself for a bit about 'value in the market' and getting better value in the summer. It makes so much sense to spend the budget in the summer as atleast you get a full season out of your signings.
Hopefully we learn the lessons of last season and don't go backwards or let players go on their terms (i.e hall). Also we gotta hope we keep hold of arblaster and devine.
January Transfers and Rumours
in Port Vale present
Posted
Quick question but do you think Weir has potential to develop as a Brighton player in the future or do you think your own improvement as a club/team have raised the standards too high for him?