Wrex

Maybe Norman was right when he said some Vale fans weren't ready for a manager like Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank...

The tears and emotion she feels about the situation are real. Unfortunately so is the delusion about how things will turn out and who is responsible.

Couldn't do much worse having him as director of football tbh

A video of a short (three minute) speech that Carol seems to have given to a room of people. In the video, she takes the mic to speak and is very emotional, almost breaking into tears as she composes herself to say that she couldn't believe it when after a three hour zoom call with Moore talking to "me and Flickers", he rang back and said he'd take the job. She says Moore's values aligns with that of the club and that she is so pleased and proud to have him as manager seen as he is a Championship manager. She goes on to say that Moore told her that he needed three games to work out the team, see the measure of them. She says that she is confident he will turn it around now he's had those three games. She says it's a good squad and she's been with the new backroom staff and their family today. They all told her how fantastic Darren is and promised her that he'll turn it around. Personally, it's a difficult watch to see her in such a state. I'm sure Moore will get the squad winning games, but it'll be in League Two. I didn't like her saying "me and Flickers", didn't sound too promising for change of sporting director, but we knew that already.

At all his previous clubs (including the successful ones) Darren Moore was criticised for making poor/strange substitutions. He was praised for building teams, being a positive force that lifted them up. But yeah, he's no tactical genius. If the director of football will allow it, then Moore can rebuild us in the summer. He won't save us this season though, not sure many managers could.

21st successive must win game. We need to avoid losing this one if we want to avoid being caught by Fleetwood

A Manchester United youth team player that had a brief cameo for us on loan some weeks ago

*sigh*

Go on...

Matt Hancock says the club are building a new website, plus an app

I think Craig Davies said he was alright?

I wonder how our infrastructure compares with that of Cheltenham's

They're too busy coming up with fluffy questions for the director of football to answer. "Sir David, thank you for giving us a moment of your precious time, it is well known how incredibly busy you are. I was just wondering if you could enlighten the uneducated masses as to how you managed to do such a fantastic job improving the academy?" etc

https://www.lep.co.uk/sport/football/preston-north-end/championship-director-of-football-hull-city-coventry-cardiff-sheffield-wednesday-qpr-preston-north-end-4489691 "Preston North End remain one of the six clubs [out of 24 in the Championship] to operate without one, along with Cardiff City, Coventry City, Sheffield Wednesday, Queens Park Rangers and Hull City". Don't know how many League One and League Two clubs "struggle" on without one. One would think much higher than the 25% of the Championship. Let's have a look at the bottom two of League Two.... https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-forest-green-rovers-head-9114560 https://www.suttonunited.net/teams/first-team/squad/management/terry-bullivant Weird that, almost like success on the pitch and where a team finishes in the EFL table has little to no correlation with whether they have a director of football or not....

Loft has scored as many goals as Pope did at his age (26). Probably not likely that Loft will go on to win the League Two top-scorer award though

Darren Moore has been here eight days. People have mentioned Carlo Nash going and have photographed Moore's former colleagues at the club. But nothing has been officially announced. The club's official website says David Dunn and Carlo Nash are still at the club, with no mention of any new names (Moore included). https://www.port-vale.co.uk/whos-who/ What's going on? It's just weird not to update the website with stuff like this.

Our 20th consecutive must win game

Well, at least matchdays seem special for them now. I dunno it sounded like <ovf censored> at the time but what do I know?

He won Premier League Manager of the Month taking West Brom from 10 points from safety to a more respectable five points from safety. He took Sheffield Wednesday from six points from safety to relegated by a three point margin. Huddersfield were drifting towards a relegation battle when he got sacked a few weeks ago. Yet to be concluded under their new manager. So yeah, his relegation battles have been creditable failures, which is no doubt what will happen here.

Mighten gets his start. Good to see Garrity on the bench

<ovf censored> me, after years of having to put up with Rampant Zebra constantly making digs at Clarke we finally get a break from it, just as you start up on about Moore!

He returned to Nottingham Forest on 10 January 2023 having played 14 times and scoring two goals, at times playing out of position at wing-back and centre-forward.[24][25] Wednesday decided to end the loan as they were contributing a significant portion of the player's wages, much to Forest manager Steve Cooper's frustration.[26][27] As Mighten had already played for Forest and Wednesday in the 2022–23 season, this left him unable to join another club on loan and gametime for Forest in the Premier League was an unreaslitic prospect.[28][29] Wednesday manager Darren Moore said that "it was one of the hardest decisions that I have had to make since becoming a manager".[30] Bet he was thrilled when Moore was appointed

Bell had Rudge as manager, bringing in millions of pounds of revenue and operating on a shoestring budget whilst also doing the work of ten men. I'm not sure Bell spent the money as well as he could have, though fair enough he wasn't wealthy enough to pump money into the club himself and kept us solvent... until he didn't.

If the top four go up in League Two as it stands then there shouldn't be anyone to worry about too much. Only thing is that anyone is a worry to us at the moment, and also less big clubs means less gate revenue.

I do think such doom mongering is OTT, but then look at Forest Green Rovers. Had a top manager, good players, got promoted out of League One ahead of us. Then the manager and the best players left, daft decisions from the boardroom for a couple of years and they're currently firmly rooted in the League Two relegation zone. If good decisions are made in the summer then we can be promoted straight back up. But equally, we can be down with the deadmen is poor decisions are made and we have a fourth consecutive bad transfer window.