Warren

Brian says lots of sensible stuff on here.

We play Peterborough on Tuesday. They have lost their last 3 games. That is a difficult fixture but I feel we have more of a chance than expected when I did my research. Obviously coming up this month are Cheltenham, Reading and Fleetwood. The euthimistic 6 pointers. We play Lincoln at Vale Park. Nothing easy but points to be had. Some confidence returned to the team yesterday. We did alright against a side where I could see why they are top 6-8. But Ojo has to stay fit and playing because he is running midfield. Yesterday we were better at corner routines. Can see efforts gone in on the training ground. We had more strength on the bench, but Lopata is possibly a big loss if he's out a few games. This wing back system drives me bananas now. On the train home yesterday I looked at the Premier League games. It's a minority system in the Premier League with most playing 4 at the back. The new in thing is the 4 becoming 3 in possession with the right back stepping into central midfield. That is what the the top two teams do with John Stones and Alexander Arnold. To be fair they have top level players comfortable on the ball and Alexander Aronold has a better cross field wang than Jones! I don't know which way our season will go, but I am worried about midfield. Ojo is the man. Weir did better. Massey good going forward. Stevenage targeted Grant at LWB second half because he was too isolated and I might conclude this system is particularly vulnerable on big pitches.

Tranmere have signed Ousmane Kane on a 6 month deal with the option to extend for 12 months. He is 22 years old and has 8 caps for Senegal. He's been on trial and now got his visa / permit ratified.

Stoke is the enemy. They have 50k people waiting to laugh at PV. Cambridge are rivals. I live on Merseyside, you're having a laugh if you think Everton fans care about PV. They are protesting points deductions at the moment. I 100% know my Liverpool supporting friends I drink with tomorrow night will not give a moment's thought to said letter. And more to the point, they are irrelevant. If Stoke lose to Blackburn on Saturday and QPR win at home, they will be in a big relegation battle themselves.

It is a communication to Port Vale fans. No one else, save perhaps business partners and manager applicants, is interested in it.

I The letter is a good communication. If nothing was said another type of criticism actually far worse would be levelled. They don't communicate with the fans. That is more poisonous. Unfortunately, the appointment of Crosby has transpired to be a big mistake. I can see why he was appointed. It wasn't the cheap option. It was a decision made after risk assessment. Crosby had performed well in his interim management spells. He is a very experienced coach. He was successful in keeping the club in L1 at the end of last season when in charge after Clarke was removed. Giving him a go permanently looked possibly less risky than bringing in a new manager. Less change etc. I think Crosby has personally cost Port Vale 10 - 15 points in games this season. His second half decision making has been particularly awful. Without these mistakes or misjudgements we would be much further up the league. This is the number one key issue. It looks like the number two key issue is the squad has been weakened not strengthened in the Jan 2024 window. So we are where we are. Must make a good management appointment this time.

I am looking forward to the new manager being appointed. The hiatus is usually filled with disappointment and recrimination at the many clubs like Port Vale who have reached these circumstances. Everyone is frustrated and the Director of Football is made a scapegoat. I am onboard with some of the criticisms but now is 100% not the time for him to go. I am hoping he can turn this around. The new manager is going to have to find a good way of playing with the players we've got. I don't think they are all bad players. Some need to have a proper journey as youth players coming through. We are struggling in midfield but have too many defensive orientated players. Our top goal scorer is out. Our centre forward is out. So the balance in the players available is wrong. For me the new manager first of all needs to make the team very defensively resilient down the middle of the pitch. Let the opposition have the ball wide but be in position to defend. In other words stop the situations where the opposition get behind the wingbacks and effectively dribble towards goal unchallenged. Also, how did we make the mistake that finally led to the Orient goal when they had 3 players behind our central defence in open ground? Organise better. Then we need to get our best players Wilson and Chislett on the ball in good areas and playing together. Wilson ran round the whole of Tuesday night making space and not receiving a pass. He was useless because of that - we were playing with 10 men effectively. Chislett dropped deep to get the ball and had too far to run when he finally got on it. The wing backs were, as common most of this season, ineffective in forward play. I know we were overloading, but towards the end of Tuesday's game we created some good chances. What were we doing right then and who was doing it? Build on that. So bitter as I am with the unattractiveness of the football throughout 2023, the ineffectiveness of the tactics this season to date, the vast number of mistakes made by the manager just sacked that led to the opposition scoring after his subs and his end of game approach, the likely failure to strengthen properly this window now closed ..... That's a long sentence isn't it!? We now need to dig ourselves out of this situation. A very good manager is needed and our support from the terraces will be important.

"Since I became Chair of Port Vale I have made mistakes. Appointing Dave Flitcroft is not one of them. I am a human who is always trying to do her best, to learn from my mistakes, grow as both a person and a leader, and act in the best interests of Port Vale Football Club. Dave Flitcroft lives by that same code and that is why he is this club’s Director of Football. His appointment without doubt has helped me bring a lot of my vision to life. He has changed the way Port Vale is viewed within the industry and is a driving force as to why the club has come so far so quickly".

Think Wrexham. They had a stand permanently closed for years as unsafe. My friend is a Man Utd season ticket holder. He ain't happy with the decline of Old Trafford and the roof letting the rain in, nor the owners, nor the manager. But it's a different level in the sport.

The only social media I engage with is Onevalefan. I spend hours of my life talking about Port Vale. Many independent observers would think I'm mad.

I do think Crosby can be aggrieved by the recent window at least. He has been stripped naked! But we now need a manager with a magic wand and he hasn't got one.

The club had been run down for decades. We all agree the pitch needed investment to provide a viable surface. There are other stadium rectification investments of a similar nature that have been made and some even go to maintaining safety and certification. On the sporting side, people accept the player's training facilities needed improvement. Other improvements to the stadium have been directed at increasing off field income. Many of these investments are capital expenditure. Ok, yes, the cash has to be stumped up by owner investment or borrowing or leasing. But the charge to revenue is finance costs on one side of the balance sheet and depreciation of fixed assets on the other. It's write down overtime stuff, not fatally compromise the player wages budget now stuff. I see much of the capital investment as unavoidable. It's partly why there are not a lot of people wanting to buy the club. Carol bought a lemon because she loves the club But clearly Port Vale has a fixed maximum size of budget. This is linked to the size of the fanbase. The fanbase is bigger than Crewe, about equal to Bristol Rovers and smaller than Barnsley. We are obviously only about a quarter the size of Derby County. We compete against a number of clubs of our size in L1, who all face the same financial viability challenge, to avoid relegation and stay in the league. Hence the budget we have causes us to duck and dive signing players. This causes the risks we now face where we have an unbalanced squad. At least we haven't got the old fart problem! We've got the too many too young problem maybe! An experienced manager should get them to step up effectively.

The defeat at Fleetwood was the final straw. The appointment of Crosby was plausible because he had lengthy coaching experience and been successful as caretaker manager in contributing to promotion. It was scary that result, because I thought we had enough in the squad to defeat Fleetwood and move back into mid table. So clearly a crisis arose and action was needed to replace the manager. We need an experienced manager to come in right now whilst the situation can still be arrested. However, after watching on Tuesday where we got battered by an upper mid table team, the transfer window does come full frontal. Midfield and wing backs, if we are going to play that system, are far too weak. In fact miles off it. Changing to my favoured formations of 433 or 4411 won't help either because that weak midfield elephant will still be in the room. A new manager will need to repurpose some of the players. For example, we lost all the physical battles in midfield and were not tackling the opposition allowing them to look like Man City in possession. Surely a new experienced manager would at least improve resilience. I have moaned about our strikeforce. But until injury Garrity was doing better than Harrison. Chislett can be made more effective. He's running round doing stuff in midfield trying to compensate for the weaknesses we now have there. The problem with the young player loans and bringing young players through is we don't know they are ready. And what we have now aren't ready for L1 level as mainstays of the side. But going back to Garrity, this injury is a mighty serious blow to him and us. We can't just go out and sign another player who will score his goals return. Yes I expect the budget does come into play. Things have gone awry. With hindsight better choices could have been made. I was pleased with the open letter. The decision being made now to appoint a new manager and staff is one of the most critical in the club's history. We need to stay in L1 or the economics of the club, difficult anyway, football clubs at our level always are, will, I believe, start to unravel. New ownership or new part ownership will be needed. Because you can't keep pumping money in to make viable what is unviable.

I was dismayed with the Cambridge defeat as it was the first time I realised what a limited manager he was. He was unable to respond to some very simple tactical ploys including the opposition limiting crossfield passes between the back 5 by way of pressing. We lost a game against a very poor team with extraordinarily low shots at goal. He had no concept of flexible tactics or making adequate changes in game. Soon after this we went through the default attacking subs phase. This is where we got Loft for Uche or Uche for Loft pretty much on the hour. Given most supporters had a problem with us signing two similar unfit forwards who don't score sufficiently this angered me really. Coming back to the Crewe games. As Crewe do I thought they played good football. We didn't lose to them because they hadn't got a cutting edge up front. We survived.

Garrity is top scorer and was likely to outscore Ellis Harrison's total from last season before injury. Chislett has done well to. But what I'm struggling to accept is the obvious hollowing out of midfield. We got annihilated there last night. We are going down unless that can be rectified quickly. I think the attack and defence will be ok if that is fixed. But how? Surely Flitcroft must see what was going to happen. The two young midfield players brought in are not ready for L1.

I don't think an employer can allow the attacks on a member of staff to go unresponded to. So the letter needs to set out the positive things Flitcroft has done. Actually there are a lot. The letter should not attack an employee in the public domain. For example, Crosby et al were removed from the club after in-house deliberation. Therefore concerns Carol has about Flitcroft will be said to him internally. But I was bored out of my skull in 2023 with how we played. To the point before Christmas where I thought of not coming again this season. At least we had our heads above water then. We don't now. This is a performance crisis (again). Also likely coming second is a financial crisis. The club is in a critical moment with this manager appointment. Need someone who can establish an effective midfield, shore up the defence and find a way to score goals. I am hoping for a lot given what I saw last night.

I was pleased to see the breadth of projects Flitcroft has been involved with. It does justify his senior role existing and likely salary it carries. But the main requirement is successful football and preferably entertainment. Now on that one over the last 18 months he can't point to success. He is currently overseeing a serious failure.

Integrity.

That's an excellent letter. I do get the arguments made. But there is an elephant in the room. With the midfield out there last night we look very likely to be relegated. With the formation we are playing utilising wing backs who are ineffective, we will get relegated. I'm unclear how a new manager can change that. But, I am prepared to accept it is over the top of me to blame Flitcroft personally. Even if we do go down, I think we could sort ourselves out and mount a promotion challenge. Anyway, I will come along on Saturday and hope we can improve. I thought Orient were super well coached last night. They had it all trained into the players. We seemed to have no patterns of play and therefore we kept either giving the ball away or hoofing it from Ripley. Crosby was clearly a mistake partly at the heart of this. But we need a walk on water manager to sort it out fast enough to stay up.

PV 6 shots, none on target, 64% possession. 1-0 to the opposition. Sounds like classic Crosby.

You obviously need an organisation structure that is adequate for all the functions that need to be carried out. The manager manages the team and relevant media work etc. Quite clearly there is a much bigger body or work than that and which needs overall oversight. Honestly, set aside the fact Port Vale is a football club, and many businesses have what would often be called Director of Operations. They sit alongside the Director of Finance, Director of Sales et al and work to the Managing Director / Owner in overall charge and responsibility.

Port Vale is a corporate entity. It is owned by Carol Shanahan et al. The fans are the customers. The customers are benefiting from better facilities invested in by the business / owners. I've not seen any valid business reason to invest in any football club like Port Vale. There are many other ways to make successful business investments. Football clubs like Port Vale quite simply consistently lose money. Therefore Carol et al are putting much of their personal wealth at risk and ultimately all most certainly some loss - likely several million. Eventually another benefactor owner will be needed to keep it going. Go back to fantasy world mate! As an accountant I have an objective perspective.

If Flitcroft left PV tomorrow. He'd point to being behind a promotion, establishing a young player structure that has brought many players through to the first team and resulted in many players being sold on to big clubs and having a team establish itself in L1. His reputation is at risk if relegation occurs. I don't think it will, but I think the manager Crosby keeps going across the cliff edge too often. The club is massively in a better place than the Smurthwaite years and Flitcroft has been important in that.

We need to win some games right now. The players in the side / squad since the start of the season have got us 5th bottom of the league. Crosby also being in charge as manager. One thing that annoys me above all else is losing games by way of the wrong strategy and wrong changes in a match. Where I am going with this is that the players recently signed, and particularly Lopata and Mighten, need to come into the team straight away. We also urgently need Ojo and Debra playing again regularly. This is about defensive resilience. People are correctly in my view observing our goal scoring is challenged. The answer to that is Chislett must continue to step up and Wilson needs to get fully back up to speed. It may help Wilson's fitness that it's Winter and a fly won't land on his head. They're both very good players at this level.

He went down for a medical..... It's all too late now. Portsmouth broke our player and he's gone to be super glued. Loft has to come in and be made effective. I think Loft must play because of his physicality. If he doesn't opposition teams will more easily target Chislett and Wilson.