Lornelounger

"As for my absence - it has nothing to do with not being paid by Flitcroft - which is very nearly libellous - but more to do with my recovering from having half a leg amputated!" To LancyTony - good luck with the recuperation. That's a pretty solid reason for not being on here so much! Your health, both physical and mental, is the important thing. Hope you are ready to go again next August.

I wasn't looking to change your views Valiiant, you're allowed an opinion too. I just hope when the blame game is over this season, she will have learned valuable lessons and be the one to bring us back up - or if by some miracle we do survive, take us forward stronger.

I think I disagree with every sentence. The club hasn't been killed. The atmosphere and feel good factor have been mind you. We'll still be in business next season, thanks to Carol. I don't think she is egotistical or patronising, but she has made mistakes - big ones, that are going to cost the club, and so her. I didn't have a problem with her open letter either, I thought it was front foot after all the stick she gets for being on the back foot. And she ate some humble pie when Flitcroft left after she said he was going nowhere. I don't get these "vanity project" comments - what sane person throws her personal wealth at a "vanity project" in the way Carol has done at great cost to herself? It would make no sense, and she is a shrewd business woman. And her losing a few million is like you losing £500? I don't see it. She has put heart and soul into the club, made mistakes, will pay for them from her own pocket, and try to get us back up if/when we do go down. Regular fans buying season tickets will too, but I think the comparison ends there. We're all angry, but personal attacks on Carol's character are out of order, in my view. I'm glad she's our chairwoman, and I hope she sticks around to see us promoted again.

Agreed - though I think we ought to be doing better given our set up as a club. Players should want to come here, but I'm guessing they don't because of the money? If it isn't that, I wonder why players who we might reasonably expect to buy go elsewhere? But yes - I like to be entertained, and as long as League 2 interesting and relatively safe, so be it - for a while. I just think we should be able to be a League 1 side, and but for the mistakes we have made, I think we still would be. Frustrating.

Well, he's good at spotting stars...

Yes, I think that is key. If our unwillingness to spend money cost us in January, it comes home to roost on lost revenue next season. I'll be sorry to see those players go, but a goalscoring midfielder and a young England player will be ripe for picking off in summer by other clubs. We need to capitalise on their worth and build a squad that is better balanced, has goal scoring potential, and is defensively cohesive. It won't come cheap, but maybe we change our pay structure and invest in better paid players, who get us into league 1 where crowd revenue will pay their wages? I mean, if not now, when? Six more seasons in League 2 will be dire. We need to bounce back quickly, and I think we can if we learn from this experience.

I don't think that I had that exact foresight KS - I started the season thinking it would be interesting, because of the players we had signed and the way the manager wanted us to play. I didn't think it would be a car crash from day one, and I've been supporting them since the late sixties - I've seen much worse teams from day one. I think I assumed we would hang on to our loanees all season, and when that didn't happen, the alarm bells started ringing, especially after we signed no strikers in January. It has indeed been a long and difficult season, and I completely get why people are struggling to be positive - I am too, but I hang on to hope. And I know it's the hope that kills you, and I know survival is unlikely now. It's just in my DNA as a Vale fan to stay positive in the hope that things will improve. I'm assuming we will learn from our lessons and not make the same mistakes again - though getting 2 talented Premiership loanees seems less likely if we are a League 2 outfit. I would sooner we bought our own players and were less vulnerable to loanees being recalled from now on, and actually strengthen in the January windows. Still can't get over the fact we had a whole month to get some firepower int the team and didn't. I would hope Darren Moore will be proactive in getting in better players - if he is still around next January.

I would agree with the incompetence and negligence. I thought we would have more resilience to avoid this scrap, or at least do better if we ended up in it. We gambled on a particular strategy and it doesn't seem to have paid off, which saddens me a lot. I think the club need to take a long hard look at this one the summer and learn from it. Thank you for admiring my ambition. I'm infuriated too by the way, it just comes out differently.

I know they are - I am too, I guess I express it differently. It's galling when we see it coming and can do nothing to help the team on the pitch, though I think the fans anger at Flitcroft helped to shift him. I've just reached the point where I'm hoping to stay up, but probably realising it isn't going to happen, and am very sad that it has come to this. But...... I am optimistic we can recover, even though it means going to Crawley again....dear God. So very frustrating.

Look at our history Doha - that is the point I was trying to make. We have done this down the years time after time. If you have followed us over any length of time, you must know that. I'm not belittling your support of the Vale, I'm saying that if you lose your rag over getting relegated, or being under the threat of relegation, or being crap over a period of games, or collapsing after being ahead, then you you you've forgotten what it is like to be a Vale fan - because we do that a lot of the time. That's all. No need for going off on one and using the words you did. But I understand you are upset too, and if that makes me sanctimonious, I'll wear it, I'm not that bothered.

I think he's in shock.

Nothing of the sort. We are all Vale fans with different ways of looking at it. The sanctimony is yours, for trying to label me. All Vale fans have a right to their view, I'm giving mine. Interesting interpretation of what I said. And no need to be so offensive. If relegation happens, it happens. It won't be good, but I've seen it before, and I have faith that we will bounce back. If that's "warm and fuzzy" then count me in as "warm and fuzzy". Better than being deeply unpleasant.

No, it won't make me feel better either. I'm just hanging on in case.

Great TV series. I'm a 62 year old Vale fan. Who are you to ask the question?

As Johnny Rotten once sang, "I could be wrong, I could be right.." I guess the odd are against us surviving, but it will be an interesting next three games. I just refuse to say it's over until it is statistically impossible to survive. Come back after the next game and tell me it is, if it makes you feel better.