leedsvaliant

I think 48 will do it this year, possibly 47. So 3 wins and 2 or 3 draws, or 4 wins. A win on Friday would be massive ahead of away games. If we could sneak a win out of one of Northampton or Wigan, both teams with not much to play for, that would leave us with trying to win 2 of our last 4. Not impossible but our form has to change dramatically.

Rovers fans are saying they've been dreadful this season but yet they're still comfortable in mid table, so they must have something about them. They've got very little to play for, which in some ways makes them more dangerous. Hopefully a bit of confidence and belief will finally seep into us.

I actually thought he did everything right with that chance in the first half. Keeper got in a good position to narrow down the angle, just unfortunate that he couldn't squeeze it inside the post.

I thought Moore said in his interview that he might be involved today?

If we have got one of the lowest budgets in the league, then the question must be why? We must be turning over bigger sums than a lot of the clubs above us, our corporate side and club shop appears to be doing well, shirt sales are up, bigger attendances than for a few years.... so what is draining our resources? Have we got too many staff? Are the owners not pumping in as much as other owners? Are we getting enough from sponsors? Should we be letting others sponsor our shirt/stadium? Is the ground swallowing up too much money? Are we allocating too much of the budget to vanity projects? If we can't compete with Exeter, Burton, Cambridge, Stevenage, Shrewsbury, Northampton, even Bristol Rovers and Leyton Orient, we might as well pack up and turn the lights off now. What's the point?

I know it's not always an indicator but my mate saw him play against his son for a school and he said he was absolutely brilliant. The best player on the pitch by miles and everyone watching him applauded him off the pitch! My mate is not a Vale fan but he could tell this lad was brilliant. I think once he fills out a bit he'll be a real talent.

Neil McKenzie gave my all time worst Vale performance away at Bury. He was like a 6 year old playing against adults.... absolutely dreadful.

And the thing with having a lower mid table budget is that you have to have a pretty much perfect season to avoid being in trouble. It's a massive gamble. I get that it would be nice to have a successive production of youth players coming through but you can spend money on that in the Championship. Leagues 1 and 2 require experienced players to get out of. Look at Derby and Portsmouth, they have a real core of experienced pros. We don't want to end up like Crewe, who bounce between the bottom two divisions and sell their youth products to simply reinvest in their youth systems. As I said, spend all the money now on experienced, trustworthy footballers to progress us up the leagues. Then do all the flowery, long-term strategy stuff. Stop trying to run before you can walk. You can bet your life that every spare penny at Stevenage is given to Steve Evans to improve his squad. They won't be ducking about with sports scientists and 10 fitness coaches. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

At the end of the day, any money available should have been ploughed into the team. Yes, some things had to be done to the stadium to make it safe, but anything else is just window dressing. The coaching room, the ice baths, the endless list of backroom staff are all great to have if you're doing well. As long as you're paying a player the going rate, he'll get changed in a portakabin. I understand to some extent to want to improve the commercial side of the business, but spending money on the unnecessary flowery stuff is just a bad plan. Spend every spare penny you have on the first team, which creates success, increased attendances, bigger away followings and everything else that comes with it. Once you achieve success on the pitch, you can do all the vanity projects you want. We've tried to act like a Championship/Premier league club before actually achieving anything. The most important thing in a football club is football. Full stop. Not community work, not nice buildings, not Mother's day lunches. Football. Concentrate on it, spend on it and then you can do as many charity/vanity projects as you like.

Yes. We were told we were going to be big, physical and athletic and the fittest team in the league. How many goals do we concede late in games? How many goals do we concede off crosses? How many times does the opposition look physically stronger than us? It goes to show that the plan for this season was an absolute sham from the very start.

Absolutely no chance of getting anything from this game. Pointless even playing it to be honest.

If Reading escape the drop, I'd still be going nuts with the league over allowing them to sign players like Smith and Knibbs. They should NEVER have been allowed to assemble the squad they have given what's happened. It's basically cheating someone else out of a league one place. Relegation minimum punishment is what they should get.

Some people aren't wired like that. I know someone who sold their business, had more than enough money to retire in complete comfort but got bored and so started up the exact same company again from scratch. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

He's not the most articulate is DM but you can tell he's enthused. Surely that's got to rub off on to the players?

I think we're leaving ourselves with too many 'must win' games, and given our form over the last year, I don't see us suddenly being the team to win 40-50% of our matches. I'm still really annoyed and frustrated with the first postponed game. We'd just come off the back of a pretty decent December and a reasonable result against Charlton.....Reading weren't in great form and we had a few more attacking options, followed by nearly 1000 fans. That postponement, followed by further postponement the week after, really knocked any slight momentum we had built. We end up playing them when they're on a really good run and we're in stinking form. Not only that, they have players like Smith and Knibbs who are likely to be on a fortune that they don't even pay. How is that fair? It's cheating, plain and simple. If it comes down to us being relegated by these 3 points tonight, I would kick off with the EFL. All this solidarity bullocks is a load of shi3te, I can guarantee that Reading and their fans didn't give a stuff about us when we were in a similar position.

We're in terrible form so we're not going to be the Dutch 70s side. We just need to scrap it out, try and keep a clean sheet and nick one up the other end. At this point it doesn't matter how we get them, we just need points.

All that is brilliant, really admirable. But we're a football club, not a charity. Apple might do some corporate social responsibility stuff, but their main aim is to sell phones and ipads. Happy for these things to happen, as long as the football club continues to progress.

I think some of the long-term strategy stuff is important. Whilst I couldn't care less if there was no food served, no entertainment, no comfort for when I take a pee, unfortunately it is a massive part of attending for some people. Most people on here would watch Vale in an old cow shed but such is the competition to get people's money off them these days, the match day has to be an experience. My daughter would have hated attending during the Bill Bratt/Smurthwaite days, where literally zero thought was put into the match day experience. There simply had to be some expenditure in the infrastructure of the club. Unfortunately, infrastructure and the football team need to be spent on side by side and I just don't think Carol or the club have the finances to do both to be instantly successful. If it were my business, I would be looking for someone to sponsor the ground, looking for a sponsor of the shirt other than synectics, I'd be looking to beg Donaldson and other very wealthy Vale fans to become shareholders. It's a real bottomless pit and Synectics do not turnover huge amounts of money. Unfortunately, football fans are short termist and if we lose some of the playoff bounce we'll never see these fans again. What I think has also got people's goat is the community stuff, which while admirable, is not the sole job of a football club. There's got to be engagement with the local community because it gets other local businesses involved (and spending money) and all businesses should have some focus on social responsibility. But it shouldn't be the overriding focus of the club. The focus is the football team...end of. Any of the nice bells and whistles should come once the club has become a success on the pitch. Once you get to the Championship and Premier league, you have the money and resource to plough into these things. Carol seems like a nice person. I met her before she became owner and she is a genuine person. But sometimes you can't help but think that her focus is on changing the world for the better rather than focusing on getting a successful football club. She's done a fantastic job on some things and the ground and pitch is unrecognisable compared to 10 years ago. I just think someone needs to refocus her on the purpose of a football club. We're not a charity.

Young could be a loan (as he has been on with Swindon) with a view to a permanent move in the summer. So technically the club would have told the truth. The original purveyor of this rumour has disappeared though. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

None of them ever go. That's why I don't bother with the Premier League anymore. They only think that they exist. At least with the likes of Brentford, Bournemouth etc. they can still remember what it was like to be a lower league club. Even most real Man City fans preferred it when they were in league 1. I'd love to see a united get relegated one day, that would really sort out who the 'real' fans are. Annoys me that I know people who support United or Liverpool who are from Stoke and have literally no connection with these places. It's so easy to support a team that wins most weeks. The real football people are those who support a team through highs and lows.

He's got an attitude problem. Another one who thinks he's better than he is.

It's often a luck thing. I've known many talented footballers who could certainly have played at league 2 level but for whatever reason they haven't been spotted or played for the wrong team. That Chris Slater from Chasetown should have been nowhere near professional football...he got lucky by having a reasonable game against us. There's also dedication. A lot of the talented footballers I knew were more of the Gazza mould than the Gareth Southgate mould. You've got to dedicate your life to being a footballer and virtually live like a monk. Lots of lads hit 16-18 and would rather booze and women than football. Clearly, anyone who has made it into league football is talented but I'd certainly say that in league 2 especially there are a few who are very lucky to be playing professionally. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

Thanks Rob. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

There's a lad that's been at Crewe, Joe White, who they seem to rave about. I think he's on loan and they've just brought in a similar type of player... Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app

What's happened to some of the historical post topics? It seems that some have been deleted or they are still there but you can't see the posts and you can't post in them. Sent from my SM-A137F using onevalefan mobile app