TJHValiant

Two dreadful owners doesn’t mean by virtue the current one is wonderful. That’s just comparing two turds with a diamond.

It’s all very frustrating. Carol holding an evening with handpicked guests to fawn over Robbie Williams, while real fans are asking when we will get some proper players in. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she owns Vale for the social aspects and as a supper club rather than any burning desire to see a successful football team. It seems like one big community social club…for her.

You’re right. I’m sure I’ve seen him play before, so maybe confused with either the 3 Vale games this season or getting him mixed up with Jordan Roberts who scored a fair few but not many this season

Pressley was excellent in league 2 for Stevenage. I live down that way so quite familiar with their team. Not good enough for league 1 in my view, worth a punt but not for money.

Doesn’t sound good.

Yeah, I hear we are back in for our long term target who we have been chasing since the late Smurfwaire era. I give you, Korean goalscoring sensation… Foo Kin Nowan!!

Not the club, and I don’t think Rudgie would want that either as he said that himself.

I agree with him, but will he? Why not before? I mean I totally agree with currying his favour and think it is a good move but I think we will be disappointed. I think, over the years, the Vale have given him far more than he has put in. He gets free games and lords it up in a box named after him. He was allowed to use the club for a charity gig which was to fulfil his personal ambition to play at Vale Park, yet he left the pitch in a right state. Yet the greatest manager in the history of the club has to write a book to pay for his own statue! Sounds totally unfair to me and Robbie will probably get a statue at Vale before Rudgie. I just think Carol is a bit of a Robbie fan and the whole thing is a big celebration of him.

I hope that is a plan. I can’t blame the club for wanting that. Only time will tell. Trouble is, it will mean Robbie will have to be on board more than he has been and 30 years of him being our star fan has amounted to not really that much in the past.

I don’t get it either and wheeling out Robbie at the end of January with a ceremonial “ President Role” was a bit unexpected and seemed a bit of a desperate way to drum up a bit of positive news.

So the academy sales don’t actually generate any additional income for the club…they just self fund an academy? Seems a bit pointless if that is the case. It may have made a £1 million loss for promotion, but that was 2 seasons ago now, without also paying off Smurfwaite. Added to that being in league 1 alone adds more than £1 million in revenue. So yeah, I would be asking where the money is, because it certainly isn’t on the squad!

Well yeah, but that’s what football is about.

I’m not quite so sure. The likes of Dicko, Remi Streete, Jak Alnwick, Michael Brown, Michael O’Connor etc were all very high quality players. Alnwick and Streete were both signed from Newcastle and were great pros.

I thought that last season and was in that very camp. Instead we cut back and no decent strikers were signed all summer.

This is nail on head territory. Absolutely spot on. Where has the money gone? I see a Smurfwaite standard squad that we had on 4K gates. People rave on about the money on the ground, but the club shop was probably the biggest development project since Lorne Street.

Yes, he has been amazing has Lucas. Showing that he was a great buy and that his discipline issues were all that let him down. Really sad.

He is 21. Garrity isn’t a striker and yes he has more goals but then he has more goals than Dan Gore too. I have seen him play previous and yes, anyone who has would see that he has strong potential to be an excellent player who will be worth a lot of money in future. That’s why I raise him and it is why Oxford have bought him. Obviously the money of Harris is big, but Flitcroft talking about Scandinavia and other pie in the sky stuff avoids the reality. There are league 1 strikers out there, but the money isn’t.

Who are these 'great strikers' that you think we should spunk our money on with guaranteed success? Clarke Harris, 550k of guaranteed greatness who would be worth every penny. On a lower value note, Will Goodwin who went from Cheltenham to Oxford will be an absolutely great signing as a striker. Only 21. We should have been in there👌

Oh it all sounded desperate. Where has the money gone? This Vale Park campus sounds lovely but won’t be going ahead in league 2 and frankly I think we be wasted on a motley crew of bargain bin signings and loans. This January is turning into a Smurfwaite “sweetie jar” special. “Look Vale fans, let me spoil you with all these loans that I am not paying for”. Then he has the cheek to try and fool, admittedly very effectively in some cases, people who think we are a “special” club who were scouted to take on these precious talents from Prem clubs. The only reason these guys are here is because Flitcroft can say, well we don’t have anyone better, so of course they will get games. Most managers at other clubs would be wary of making such promises to unproven players, but Crosby has no choice.

Rot. Every club wants to buy low and sell high. That isn’t a model of anything, that’s what the club has always done. As others have said, Peterborough and Brighton spent money. We got some hopefully talented lads from somewhere else on loan. Not developing anything our own. I just think it was all hot air. If the Liverpool and United prem lads are a success then they will simply leave the club and back to square one. I don’t think they should not be here, they have a part to play, but they should be supporting a structure of decent players coming through, not be seen as big stars who will keep us up. Cut through the bull from Flitcroft and we are left still needing a decent striker, which he reckons is out there in Sweden for some reason, probably because he got Rudgie’s book for Christmas. Forgetting we have Loft for another 18 months thanks to him and have kept Uche thanks to Charlton not wanting to go through with a deal. We all know there are great strikers out there, the elephant in the room is that they cost money. That’s what’s really missing here, the money, not the quality strikers.

Me too and yes not great but to be fair we certainly didn’t contribute to the entertainment of those games.

Stevenage have made great signings all season long. The outcome? Pushing for the championship

I tend to suggest my mindset will be heavily influenced by results over the next few weeks…as will everyone else’s.

We have had two excellent loan players in Arblaster and Devine. That’s it. I can’t recall any loan player being critical of the club in the past. Even Alex Jones, after being sold to Bradford warmly praised us, after if we listen to what was to be believed, had basically been nurtured by us on a diet of old Wrights pies that Smurfwaite could not shift from matchdays. I just find this idea that we are proven destination for developing young players to be completely wide of the mark, yet. It was only 12 months ago our highest profile loan was a crocked, past it, Matty Taylor. Balmer was a flop, Josh Thomas never really made much of an impact, but was good against Charlton…that’s pretty typical of most loans. Some good, some bad.

I like the optimism, but this idea we were “scouted” because of our abilities as a club that can nurture talent is a load of bull that Flitcroft has spun us for. I hope it works, but I will take his ability to talk well with a huge pinch of salt. Man United currently have numerous players on loan at a range of clubs as follows: 44MF ENGDan Gore (at Port Vale)[231 ]48DF ENGWill Fish (at Hibernian)[232 ]52FW ENGJoe Hugill (at Burton Albion)[ 233]66DF ENGRhys Bennett (at Stockport County)[234 ]68MF POLMaxi Oyedele (at Forest Green Rovers)[235] Liverpool 28FW PORFábio Carvalho (at Hull City until 30 June 2024)[149] 45GK BRAMarcelo Pitaluga (at St Patrick's Athletic until 30 November 2024)[150 ]46DF ENGRhys Williams (at Port Vale until 30 June 2024)[151] 72DF NEDSepp van den Berg (at Mainz 05until 30 June 2024)[152] Not really the mega coup being touted about. Are all these other clubs, Burton, Forest Green, Stockport all specially selected? In fact, all of his peers are on loan at a level below or equal to us. So the idea we have become a pull for a load of Championship level youngsters isn’t true. They are u23 players in teams we often stuff in paint point games. There is no special “scouting magic” that has made us more appealing. We used to get players in from Nottingham Forest quite often under Askey in league 2, it just happens that now we are in league 1, the youngsters can now come from the Prem. The only reason any Prem team would be keen to loan their youth players is for games. The reason we can offer them guaranteed football is because we have a glaring shortage of quality in first team areas as we have not bought our own guys in. Anything else is just Flitcroft fairy tales and decent PR spin. I admit we are far better at that these days.