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JRC

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Everything posted by JRC

  1. Dean Smith and hulbert need to be added to the awful signings list aswell! Hulbert was OK in a holding role. He was no world beater but he did the simple stuff well enough.
  2. I suspect Craig Rocastle is still buried deep in your brain 🤔
  3. Until we are relegated or the Cambridge game every game will be the biggest from now on in.
  4. I believe it was Horton who (allegedly) got stabbed in the back by Foyle and Glover. They were (allegedly) promised the job at the end of Brian Horton's contract. Horton found out he wasn't getting a new contract and left. Foyle was still playing when Rudge left and only profited in the sense he got the job as youth team coach. He took over as manager when Horton left.
  5. If Rudge has some input it will probably be Foyle. Certainly a nice guy with a deep love of football. If part of the job is overseeing the youth development I'm not sure how strong his CV, although he did briefly coach our under 15s. His general recruitment was good for us when he had no money; the bit that went wrong was when Bratt opened the purse strings. Post Vale he's generally had a good track record. Possibly the only person in the game who watches more football than Rudge used to. He'd be much more in the background than Flitcroft.
  6. Loft and Wilson will start. Dipepa will probably be on the bench.
  7. We do seem to play Rovers in games that matter. What price another Loft winner?
  8. I suspect Uche and Dipepa will make the bench next weekend. Having 4 forwards available will make a difference.
  9. Before getting to Vale what an ugly side Burton have become. They are a talentless Wimbledon. I thought the players stood up well to the physical challenge. First half against the wind was a challenge. Second half we actually played some good stuff. I thought Loft's overall game was outstanding. They had big centrehalves and he won more than his share of headers. After a poor start at Vale his general play has been quite good, just no confidence infront of goal. Did well to create the chance for Chislett. Chislett probably did us a favour in missing as you could see how much scoring meant to him. Hopefully he can knock a few more in over the remainder of the season. Sadly probably a bit too late in the season to make a difference but I want to see fight and for the players to be trying to stay up.
  10. The first 2 weren't great but OK. Southall was probably the best keeper in Europe when he came in for that short spell. Went back to Everton and the rest was history. Bury away was the best goalkeeping display I've seen in a Vale shirt.
  11. As late as October we had conceded fewest in the league from set pieces. It hasn't been an all season thing but has happened with increasing regularity as the season has progressed.
  12. I believe he's in the starting lineup today. Somewhat meteoric rise for the lad, from nowhere to now one of the best 11 players of his age in the country.
  13. Personally I would never, nor advise anyone else to, buy a lower league team. No money and large amounts of grief. If she was after a hobby I'd have recommended a labrador. It's also one of the few businesses where 90% of the customers claim they can run the business better than the managers.
  14. Upon reflection I don't think the tenure of Flitcroft has been as bad as many make out given his role. The recruitment side obviously cost him his job. Initially his recruitment was good, although we were a relatively high payer (not the highest) in league 2. Particularly in the Jan 24 window my gut reaction is he was setting his sights too high, certainly for centreforward and possibly at leftback. What we needed was league 1 ready players to keep us up, not championship ready players. The summer window was mainly poor due to a lack of strikers. I know people will fire back that we recruited Loft but it's also true we missed out on a number of targets before we recruited Loft. Yes there were positive comments about Loft when he signed; but you don't sign someone and say I'm really pleased to sign my 10th choice centreforward. How much missing players was due to budget, wage structure and a lack of realism is conjecture but there were decent (not top) league 1/2 strikers within our budget. Someone like Joe Ironside wouldn't have been a promotion striker BUT we would have been a much better team with him in the squad. That striker failure has largely been responsible for where we are. We showed early in the season we could be competitive in the league but the lack of goals meant pressure on the defence and defenders who looked reasonably solid at this level for 3 months post Barnsley away have one by one turned into rabbits in the headlights. Where he certainly deserves credit is the way he has integrated the academy into the first team. I know there are strong supporters of Sevvy and that many of the youngsters coming through were recruited pre Shanahans. The truth remains young players were not coming through before Flitcroft. They are now. Whether that could have been achieved without sacking some of the existing staff is a different question. He should take some credit for aligning the youth development and the first team, even if it could have been achieved in a different manner. Going forward the challenge is can we maintain the progress of the academy with new management in place at the same time as improving recruitment and performance of the first team. If we are to be sustainable and progress I personally feel the academy is probably more important in the long-term than the first team. The Rudge model got shut down by Bosman. For a club of our size there is the potential fairy godmother / godfather model but this is far from guaranteed. There is the yoyo league 1/2 model which is performing in line with attendance. Or there is the academy model. If we are going to stick with the academy model is Moore a manager brave enough to give youth it's chance? There is also the question of does our fanbase have the patience? Micky Adams certainly didn't think so. My own view is pre Rudge glory year supporters are probably a bit more sanguine about things than supporters from the mid 80s to late 90s. If you followed the club in the late 70s you really experienced dire. If we are going to keep with the academy we probably also need to replace Flitcroft to try and maintain a consistent approach at all levels in the club. If not then I suspect we will end up as the yoyo club as we have spent most of our history, praying for a fairy godmother to come along.
  15. The Northern Ireland Youth YouTube page has a few clips interspersed with an interview with their coach.
  16. We can't play him for a week as he is with England until Wednesday.
  17. Mr Williams has had opportunities to buy the club in the past and always chosen not to. It does seem that Vale fan are currently like a 9 year old girl expecting a Prince to turn up and carry her away. Looking around similar sized clubs when owners do decide enough is enough there is a much higher probability of a Norman Smurthwaite taking over. Suger rush of a cash injection before the new owner realises he or she has got into a bottomless money pit.
  18. People choose not to take jobs for location or family reasons regularly. For players paying the higher rate tax and NI an extra 100 a week doesn't equate to a lot of extra take home to justify the aggravation of either commuting or relocation. I'd be more surprised if any manager ever came out and said no players refused to come to a club for family or location issues.
  19. Football management is a fickle game. You go from hero to vilified in 12 months. John Rudge is a very contented man who would have no interest in taking another job. I agree he would not be interested.
  20. I tend to agree. I've rarely seen a group of players as devoid of confidence as this group, more so since Moore came in. Where I do agree with Flitcroft (although it must have been partly his decision) we should never have cancelled games when we were playing well during the international breaks. Created a fixture backlog and we lost nearly all rearranged fixtures.
  21. I must be honest the time to panic was January. Looking at where we are now it would probably be throwing good money after bad. It's becoming low pressure football and Moore really needs to use the rest of the season to experiment for next: particularly if/when we lose on Saturday. An opportunity to give some experience to one or two of the younger players and see what combinations of contracted players can work in different systems.
  22. In the past plenty of young talent at Crewe showed their qualities in league 2. Historically it was said that you got more time on the ball the higher up the leagues you played and that suited better players. I'm not sure that's true today.
  23. Fair play to Dipepa. I'd assumed he was added to the squad mainly for them to have a closer look at him. He obviously did well enough to get on the bench and then took his opportunity. I'd guess he will be on the bench as a minimum on Saturday and next Tuesday.
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