Warren

I'm hoping he's Man Utd's new Paul Scholes.

Gore should be getting regular games in the Man Utd first team. In the way Liverpool are doing this. Utd have blocked up their first team with expensive over the hill players and in some cases ones who have not worked out. Surely the reserve team player of the year should be brought through. PV is a chance to clear the pathway. He will play regularly for PV and help make sure we stay away from danger at the bottom. Table topping Portsmouth is a good first game. We must also keep bringing through our youth players giving them plenty of game time.

The quickest ways to death can be ranked. 1. drug overdose. 2. alcoholism. 3. betting. Betting can lead on to 1 and 2.

Yes, there are two aspects to the situation. There is what you have done (past) and what you may do in future. Punishment for past actions is necessary to sanction the person, maintain integrity of the rules and deter others from offending. The person can't be allowed to carry on offending or to fail at some future point in time and fall back into offending. Therefore punishment is usually not enough to deter future offending as we often see with drink drivers. The heart of the addiction must be addressed through treatment and adopting a life style change. But there isn't absolute assurance this will work and therefore I do wonder what monitoring and enforcement programme the authorities have put in place for Toney going forward. A second spell of offending would be a failure for everyone and surely could lead to a lifetime ban? Betting is different to drinking and smoking. In the modern game excesses of these are semi self resolving because of the direct decline in performance resulting in being dropped. But a better can appear to be performing well until they throw the game in someway. Football can observe what happened in snooker and what a mess it caused.

Need to make sure Fleetwood keep going glug, glug, glug as their holed boat with drowned owner goes down. It's a tough world football and massively about survival of the fittest.

The important thing is I can see Gore is 100% ready for L1 level football and to play in our midfield. I am much more confident that we can climb the league to safety watching the above. I think he will be great with Chislett. Do I have a concern? It's only about getting injured because the opposition close him down forcefully. But that's true if he was at PL level as well. I don't really understand what Man Utd are doing. If he was at Liverpool he'd be getting worked into the first team pro-actively. Instead Man Utd keep signing expensive older players.

He plays the best pass in the situation.

Very promising. Another thing that struck me watching this clip is how important the improvement to the PV pitch has been. A player like Gore and Blaster etc. want to come, play and develop on a pitch that is credible if not quite equal to a Premier League pitch.

Betting is an addiction equivalent to drinking and smoking. It's important to keep it in it's place.

Toney should be banned. The rules are clear and absolute. Otherwise the football authorities would have to police every bet placed by every player to evaluate it's impact on a game and competition. That is clearly impossible. It's easy to go bet if a player wishes. Retire from football. Simples. The 'investment' by betting companies in advertising related to football does not threaten the integrity of play in games. There is a discussion to be had about overall desirability in the sport. But that doesn't go to integrity of play which is fundamental.

The Premier League has clubs losing vast amounts of money. But losing say £100 million over 3 years will be funded by owners. The Financial Fair Play Rules are also doing something weird. Preventing a club that has owners loaded with vast cash resources from spending to a big enough extent to grow and challenge Man City. That's Newcastle. They're stuck. In fact they need to sell players and will go backwards. Football has always had funding issues. Today is no different overall, but there are new variants of problems.

I want to sign Alexis Mac Allister from Liverpool. World Cup winner of course. But he gave a master class in holding midfield distribution yesterday at Bournemouth. Whoever plays there for us the next few weeks should watch the game yesterday.

We are using an advantage a 'smaller club' like Port Vale can offer in the market place. That is to offer the guarantee of playing a large number of senior games to a young player who needs exactly that. We seem to have been able to loan some top quality because of that advantage. But we must get it right or we will be stuck playing 'kids' who are not ready.

The thread is relevant. If the manager and coaching staff at Shrewsbury are sacked it means they will struggle to attract and sign players in the remaining days of the window. Also players approached by other clubs are more likely to leave. All this provides advantage to Port Vale in this window when a main rival in L1 is disadvantaged.

Shrewsbury have sacked management team.

Inventory of window to date. Posed some challenges by the best loanees going back. Look to have dealt with that with the quality of the signings on loan to replace. Particularly pleased we signed a likely very capable and big centre half. Not lost any of our own best players so far despite concerns. Pushing through the youth strategy by giving out first team contracts to far more players than in many a year - maybe ever. At the moment I think we have enough to stay clear of relegation. Need to win the games in hand though. Concerns. Last minute raid of our best players. Unable to respond before the shutters come down. If we do respond we sign another crocked hopeful not ready to play for weeks / months.

There is the team that was and the team that will be after the changes in the last 10 days.

Has Robert Lewandowski taken a magic potion?

Where loan deals are made the club loaning may stand some of the wages. There are two situations. Loaning for experience. Loaning out a temporarily unwanted player.

Chislett has proved himself at L1 level. It's a big step up to the Championship and even more so a team pushing for promotion to the Premier League. Can't see this one, but I'm prepared to be shocked.

Crosby needs to integrate the new players and come up with the tactical approach to play the league leaders by next weekend. Let's hope he continues to mature as a manager. We are in a position with games in hand to climb well in to mid table with wins. Lose them and we are in the battle to stay up.

Cats can be good in goal for shooting in practice. Our cat Whisky used to love saving ping pong balls with his paws. Definitely faster reactions than Ripley.

We could only loan him out in a downward direction. He's been around a couple of years with the first team squad and started playing regularly. But he 100% should be playing in his best position. It's OK playing WB occasionally but he needs to prove he's our next midfield talent. To do that he has to play there.

Caused me to look at the Barrow team. Includes Proctor, Whitfield and Worrall. Stockton on the bench. I think we escaped one with him.

David Worrall started for Barrow today. Great to see.