Trumpingtonvale

No, hence the emoji. But it will be a new ground for all/most Vale fans and that reason is enough for some to make the trek. It’s only just over an hour away for us so we’ll be giving it a go.

We’ll have to go just to see us maintain the record of being the only club to have beat every other team in the football league 😉

West Brom’s a good shout with the DM connection as has been said, Derby and Sheff Utd might be one’s too that might bring a few away fans (might even bring in more income than playing Crawley et al during the season).

Wasn’t the former DoF in charge of the academy, pitch improvements, medical staff and training facilities too?. Don’t remember it being said that Will Ryder (head of the academy?) would be reporting into DM , indeed Matt Hancock actually eluded to their being collective decisions eg determining where best to invest income from the sale of academy players. It was certainly clear DM would be in charge of first team matters and recruitment for sure, but don’t recall any of the other accountabilities the old DoF had being mentioned.

DM was very careful to not over commit. He said what fans obviously wanted to hear regards new signings but did caveat that by saying the players ultimately decide where they want to go, not PVFC. Phil Sproson, Adam Yates and Leon Legge have all commented on Radio Stoke previously too, that even if we match the offers of other clubs (financially) it’s still a difficult proposition to get permanent signings to come to our club, for whatever reasons. Experienced players (by that I mean natural leaders and winners) are not perhaps as easily persuaded by how well we look after them and/or their families as our young loanees (and their clubs) may have been in the recent past. As DM eluded too, we need a winning mentality first (as a club) being nice/friendly at the same time is the ideal but not a necessity.

His comments about our being ‘soft’ with no ‘edge’ (ie too nice) as a club/team were particularly telling and on the mark. He’d obviously spoken to players collectively and individually since Saturday laying down exactly what his expectations of them will be when they return from their holidays. With some of his other comments it felt like he’d given the squad an ultimatum of it’s either my way (stern, steely etc) or the highway - contract or not.

Cambridge fans thought Wes Hoolahan dropping a couple of divisions (via a 12 month sabbatical to the A-League 😉) to play for them was nonsense, but how wrong they were. Bannan signing for us would be a similar coup and if we could get a striker of Paul Mullin’s calibre too (Cambridge unbelievably signed him that same summer) then an immediate bounce back up could be on the cards. However, there’s no indication Bannan wants to leave according to this article, though guess he’ll have no say in the matter if Wednesday decide to release him next week. Barry Bannan issues 'clear' verdict on Sheffield Wednesday future, it's 'never changed' WWW.SHEFFIELDWEDNESDAY.NEWS

Having listened to U’s fans waxing lyrical about him the last couple of years, he’s essentially their James Wilson equivalent - he’d be playing at a higher level but for his injury record and it’s that record that’s made him affordable for Cambridge.

It’s still the most unlikely scenario but I would like to see Cambridge relegated purely since it’ll only be a 15 minute journey for me for the ‘away’ fixture.

Posted this on the wrong thread earlier- Doh! ‘U’s fans at work are worried about Saturday- they’re assuming both Burton and Cheltenham will win and don’t think their team are up for it - a lucky draw last night with Lyle Taylor having an altercation with fans (told them to f’off) a la Sammy Robinson for us at Accy last season - they reckon there are only 3 or 4 players worthy of the shirt (sound familiar?) and they don’t see us as a pushover - I put them straight about the qualities of our team and suggested the right thing (for both sets of fans) would be to play the game as a five-a-side 😉’

U’s fans at work are worried about Saturday- they’re assuming both Burton and Cheltenham will win and don’t think their team are up for it - a lucky draw last night with Lyle Taylor having an altercation with fans (told them to f’off) a la Sammy Robinson for us at Accy last season - they reckon there are only 3 or 4 players worthy of the shirt (sound familiar?) and they don’t see us as a pushover - I put them straight about the qualities of our team and suggested the right thing (for both sets of fans) would be to play the game as a five-a-side 😉

Sorry JJ the pedant in me wants to say he’s made one. Bringing Sang on during the 2nd half at Burton, for me, changed that game positively - but once out of 80 opportunities (5 per 16 games?)I think pretty much proves your point.

Who knows we may be able to loan some of them out to reduce the wage burden? Would have thought more chance of other clubs considering loaning our unwanted, under contract players than paying any transfer fees. May be a few Mal Benning type ‘transfers’ - players finding other clubs and then agreeing to cancel contracts by mutual consent.

Doubt any relegation clause will release him on a free. So If he’s not free who would buy him?

I’m sure this is not the first time it’s been suggested but would having a fan rep/director or two on the board be a way forward to rebuild fan relationships with the owners? Who that might be would be the challenge- elected by 1876 club and season ticket holders (ie club ‘members’) perhaps with annual/seasonal elections? Get the impression our CEO may be up for it but don’t know if anyone else currently on the board would be. Found this posted by an Everton fan group a few years ago. Food for thought? Fans on boards, the benefits, challenges and how it can be achieved THEESK.ORG

They’ve won 4, 3 of them in the first 5 games after he left (they’ve not won since Feb) - arguably they got the new manager bounce that we didn’t. He got relegated with both West Brom and Wednesday (when both in the relegation zone when appointed) was sacked by WBA when in the play offs (with 10 games to go) the following season, was poached by Sheffield when Doncaster were in the playoffs of L1 then got Wednesday to the playoffs in the 2 successive seasons (promotion the second time) following their relegation. Guess it’s debatable if play-offs following a relegation is because of improving his squads but he had no transfer windows to avoid relegation and at least 2 transfer windows to achieve play off positions at 3 of his 4 clubs. Are his last 8 months a ‘blip’, in what ‘til then has been a relatively successful 6 year managerial career, or are they a sign of things to come? No one knows but I’m happy to be patient enough and give him at least one transfer window to find out, whichever league we’re in. UTV

Yep. Am assuming the original post was referring to him seeing Carol at the EFL awards event? Was the event televised ? If not wondering why he’d be in attendance to see how Carol looked - would he have been the guest of another EFL club chairman?

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I recall thinking the same at the game, went from euphoria (didn’t Darren Beckford curl one in from the sideline?) to indignation when hearing whispers that Liverpool fans were on the pitch/‘trouble’ in the stands etc perhaps understandable following on from Heysel etc. Then to utter sadness/despair when got back to the car and put the radio on. Disgraceful what happened afterwards regards how authorities (police, government, some media etc) tried to blame innocent football fans.

Regards Chislett, he didn’t look 100% in the pre-match warm up - lots of ‘stretching’ rather than ball-work and lots of chat with coaching staff/physio(?), however, it didn’t show when he came on, though, unusually for him, he ran straight down the tunnel at the end - could be illness rather than injury and he just need the bog 🧻 Regards the game, despite what some have said, I thought there was plenty of effort without the ball just very little quality for the short times we had it. I said in another thread I felt pre-game the same as I did before the Ipswich game at the end of last season the performance was similar with regards the back-to-the-wall defending (especially first half) but that’s as close as we came to emulating the Ipswich game. Bolton apart, fortunately we won’t encounter the same attacking threat posed last night (I thought Mason-Clarke and Poku were class and am sure would give any opposition wingbacks/fullbacks a hard time let alone the makeshift ones we’ve had to field this season) and that gives me a glimmer of hope that we may still get something out of our remaining fixtures that at least gives us a chance of staying up.

Not record breaking this year - 40 was enough the season before last for Fleetwood to stay up . Tonight’s game has me feeling similarly to Ipswich away last year when I was expecting a much heavier defeat than we got and a much poorer performance than I saw. Don’t really go with the view of tonight being a free hit with the goal difference we have relative to Burton and Cheltenham - I’d settle for any result that keeps us out of the bottom 4 and keeps staying up in our own hands.

Where are our centre halves - Jesse and Kasper - are both injured?

We’d be OK going a goal down if we played Charlton every week. Come backs from behind 4 times against them this season (Wycombe and Stevenage once each too 90 min & 90 min+ equalisers).

Let’s hope he breaks through (the opposition defence) and scores today and the next 3 or 4 games to keep us up 😁 What I liked about his goal on Friday was that he didn’t seem rushed at any point and it was an excellent/clever finish - wrong footing the keeper (did he give him the’ eye’) as well as the 2 or 3 defenders in the build up. I realise the BR defence weren’t exactly ‘at it’ on Friday but obviously the England set-up saw he had potential and if Baylee replicates that calmness in front of goal (and elsewhere on the pitch) on a regular basis then it’s no surprise that top clubs in England and Europe will be interested. I don’t necessarily see it as a problem him/us being a ‘marked man’ and targeted by defenders/defensive midfielders. Firstly they’ve got to be good enough to get close to him, secondly if teams concentrate on him that leaves space for others (similar to the Uche effect) and third he’s already come up against big ugly defenders throughout the season and seemed to have progressively dealt with the challenges (problems) put before him. No doubt there will be some defenders good enough to have him ‘in their pockets’ during a game but sometimes I think we give too much credit to how good the opposition teams in this league are (I realise we’re 4th bottom but mean not every team will have defenders good enough to cope with talented forwards).

Not sure but him signing a professional contract may have allowed him to change his training regime. Possibly now down the gym everyday building his core strength so he’s now not so easily knocked off the ball by ‘grown men’. Think it was mentioned last season James Plant was a monster in the gym and his strength/fitness improved beyond that of the seasoned pros in the first team to the extent he forced his way into being selected for the the last few games of the season.