Santa

All the teams are down there for a reason. It’s a mini league and the least worst out of us, Burton and Cheltenham will stay up.

I don’t see Burton winning 4 out of 5 so I would be surprised if we needed 12 points to finish above them. As for Cheltenham, they would need 13 points out of 7 games to likely stay up on GD if we got 12 more points. That would have to be W3 D4 L0 or W4 D1. Cheltenham might be capable of 10 or 11 points in a best case scenario but they would do extremely well to get 13. I’m sticking my neck out but I’d be comfortable with 10 points, maybe 9 if our goal difference was better. That said there’s only five goals in it which could still be swung in our favour.

Yeah I was intending on travelling from Manchester as well. We'll have to hold our horses until Bolton in a couple of weeks.

Northern and TransPennine on strike Saturday so check your trains.

I hope so. If we do manage to stay up, Stockport and Wrexham being in the same league as us and fishing in the same pool for players (although they were probably doing that to some extent anyway) won't help matters. We're going to have to think outside the box.

A friend went up to Vale today but said they still hadn't arrived. There's supposed to be no Pay On The Day, but the club are asking Wigan if this can be relaxed, given the massive Horlicks they've managed to make of ticketing.

Us, Cheltenham and Burton, all fighting over the last lifeboat.

Michael Smith’s loan move to Derby fell through because Wednesday wanted his wages paying in full (reportedly £15K a week), plus a loan fee on top. There’s nothing to suggest he was ever a realistic target.

The DoF position still needs to exist. It just needs someone to do a better job at it. The club's long term strategy on a number of different levels shouldn't get chucked in the bin because the guy in charge of it goes on a poor run of results as first team manager. The days are gone of managers like Rudge working 80 hour weeks and spending the club's money like it was his own. Strategic recruitment and scouting is more data based and needs to entrusted to a group of people rather than just the whims of one person.

Golf clubs have changed...

In recent years in League One yes. This year it's on a Saturday rather than a Sunday. League Two they don't seem to be that bothered about moving the final day of the season for telly. 2024 Cambridge H 2023 Plymouth H 2017 Fleetwood A 2016 Walsall H 2015 Fleetwood H

Egregious.

#Flitcroftrelegationparty

The other thing with Norm was that it wasn’t all work work work. He kept a healthy work life balance and managed to find plenty of time for his other activities.

Smurthwaite was a genius. How he managed to build a similarly talented squad, all by himself, without paying out a director of football salary, I’ll never know.

Do you know what Warren, I think you might be right.

Would it be 3 wins in 30 if we fail to win on Saturday?

I saw someone say that we are on a par with the Bruno/Brown team of 2016/17 but not quite as bad as the Foyle/Sinnott team of 2007/08, and I tend to agree. There have been worse Vale sides in the fourth tier. The Pugh/Tonge axis of evil immediately springs to mind.

AC/DC - Thunderstruck Faithless - Insomnia Before anyone asks

This will not endow any of them with any footballing ability.

It saddens me to think of some the players we will have under contract next season.

First priority has to be to make sure we don’t do a Forest Green. That requires signing some players with some leadership and fighting qualities, instead of having some nice metrics on Wyscout.

It was Plymouth Argyle. 17 league games plus 1 cup game (away at Sunderland who went on to reach the final that year).

There would be some entertainment value at least, which would be an improvement on where we are currently.

Could work.