JRC

I wouldn't have appointed Moore personally. I preferred Derek Adams as he has been successful with small budgets. Not getting Wednesday promoted from this league would have been poor considering their budget. I don't think we should sack any manager without 18 months in position. Football results aren't just down to how good a manager is. There's players at their disposal and frankly luck plays a large part in it. A big part of luck is key players being injury free. First half of the Adams promotion season we were fortunate JMW, Vincent, Morsy, Pope and Neal were largely injury free prior to Christmas. All 3 Rudge promotions involved key players like Earle, Walker and Beckford having full seasons. Luck in games also evens out of time but often not in a season. Although I don't want him sacked it must be said I think he has probably done worse than Crosby would with the players available. I believe his win %age is significantly below Crosby, Brown, Sinnott, Buttler and even Dean Glover. He's certainly not a miracle worker but we will see how he does next season with a preseason to set his own mark on things.

I think that is the bottom line. The is a seriously moronic part of OVF who seem to truely believe there is a long queue of billionaires wanting to fund Vale. There isn't and until there is there is it's Carol or Barrett's Homes as realistic options.

If the bookies were watching the game at 2-1 they'd have offered 10-1 odds on for Exeter to win.

I've only done 52 but I've seen similar. They tend to happen when there is an issue between the manager and the players. It was an issue at the end of Askey's tenure, although that has been well documented by the main protagonist. There was a spell at the end of Aspin's, McGrath's and certainly Butler's reigns when it was clear players had lost faith.

I suspect the halftime talk was all about keeping their shape defensively and defending the box. What it ended up as was old fashioned attack vs defense. Moore does seem to be instinctively negative. When Uche came off we were crying out for someone to hold the ball up but Loft is clearly on the naughty step. Dipepa struggles to do a full 90 but was kept on all game. I do wonder if Moore has lost the dressing room, or if he ever really had it. Whatever the plan was at halftime the players didn't look like they believed in it. After the substitutions at the end it was clear there was no plan. Still he was the clear fan's favourite on the message boards so I guess we got what the majority of us wanted.

I am bemused as to what the manager thought he was doing with the substitutions. Possibly the worst 45 minutes of football I've seen.

Came as a centreforward. Came back each preseason 2 stone overweight! Became a great midfielder.

Shuker was no longer a winger when we signed him. He played the Luke Joyce role in the first half of the promotion season and adapted to it very competently. For me he did it much better than Joyce. Too often Vale fans forget how good we were first half of that season. When the window opened we were top of the league. Second half of the season with the big names we were 10th or 11th in the form tables. We scrapped promotion due to Lee Collins most important Vale Park goal. He had a big impact on Sam Morsy and taught him you didn't need to kick players 10 foot up in the air to win the ball if you could read a game and got your positioning right. He had massive knee problems throughout his Vale career and was often playing in a lot of pain, so was never able to run full speed, or train properly. He was so small he tried to become a jockey after football!

He was but he'd dropped down to Orient ( I think) when we signed him. If we had one of Bogie, Taylor, Horton, Brammer, Earle, Van Der Laan or Walker today I'd be way more confident. Even Sam Foley or Michael O'Connor would significantly improve us.

In the Rudge era the ones that stuck around generally had a flaw. Foyle wasn't quite quick enough to be a second or big enough to be a line leading forward. Glover wasn't quite tall enough or quick enough, Aspin lacked finesse. Naylor was not very tall and got into the game quite late. Quite a few also came because they'd spent a long time as squad players and genuinely wanted regular games. The mystery was Ray Walker, he lacked a little pace maybe but read the game so well it didn't matter. There wasn't much between him and Horton, the latter had a very good top flight career.

We aren't making top end loses just the norm for this league, but we don't have top end revenue. Peterborough lost more than us but get 30% bigger gates, so they spend a lot more on wages. Portsmouth lose about 3m but they have triple our gates. Everyone is overspending by about the same amount. The smaller clubs loses are just much bigger as a percentage of revenue while there wage bills are still much smaller as they have a lot less revenue.

If the person who claimed to be "in the know" was correct (don't believe he was for one minute) that we had the 4th lowest wages in league 1 just imagine some of the losses yet to be announced. The results for this season will be at least as bad. The vast majority of supporters can only dream of earning one weeks loss in a year. Clubs are loaded up on debt which they can never hope to repay. As clubs go to roll over they will be faced with an additional 3% interest as a minimum. In reality probably more as this size of loss is probably about par in league 1 and lenders will want a significant risk premium. At some point in the next 2 seasons I'd anticipate 3 or 4 clubs at least doing a Bury. Really it mirrors a lot of economies around the world. Global debt has risen from 210 to 312 trillion USD in a decade. In the run up to 2007 there was debt fueled global expansion which came crashing down spectacularly precipitated by the US mortgage crisis. The scale of the increase in recent years makes that rise look insignificant. I suspect there is a very good reason why the rich are increasingly buying gold and reducing their wealth in stocks and shares.

Big big game. Not expecting high entertainment, Exeter have only scored one more than us this season. They also have a pretty awful goal difference. What we can't do is go a goal down, they tend to get a result if they get ahead. Conversely they are almost as bad as we are at not get points if they fall behind and we are bad! They'll play 3421 possession based football, they normally have over 60% of the ball. It's going to be all about someone taking their chances. If we can get ahead I think we'll score 2, if we fall behind I suspect they are too good at killing a game.

He didn't score against Ipswich, although I still think that was his best game.

Plant scored one of his 2 goals at right wingback vs Plymouth and the other as a defensive midfielder vs Charlton. He hasn't really got a position yet as a league player. Bromage was a good youth team winger who ended up as a decent wingback. Most academies now move young players into different positions. Aspin or Walsh playing many games at rightback didn't stop them becoming good centrehalves. Loft was the 4th best leftback I've seen at Vale in 55 seasons, despite preferring midfield. Personal view was he could have made Championship level at leftback yet is nowhere near the top 10 midfielders I've seen at Vale. Sometimes build and physical attributes limits a players ability to play different positions; mainly centrehalves, centreforwards and to an extent wingers. After that it's football intelligence. Mills was the best rightback I've seen at Vale, yet he was a midfielder who was signed to cover longterm injury to Ray Walker. Walker was incredibly comfortable as a centrehalf because like Mills he had a good football brain. I'd agree that players who lack real football intelligence struggle and that certain positions are more specialised than others. Equally there are a host of examples of players who can play different positions almost seamlessly. Chris Shuker was a prime example of an intelligent footballer who lacked height, strength and when at Vale pace; yet moved from flying winger to an excellent defensive midfielder because he understood football after we signed him. Play by numbers players can't adapt but that's a long way from all players. In terms of Plant I don't think he has the attributes to be above league 1 as a wide player, unless he adds football intelligence. He's neither quick enough, good enough on the ball or enough one on one. He may develop the understanding of the game to go higher but to do that he needs more than impressive workrate, currently his strongest attribute.

IFollow is much better this season. The only occasional problem is loss of the Radio Stoke commentary. I don't remember any problems with the video this season.

The money and hours they are on means redundancy isn't a big cost. Maybe 25 times 3 hours a year. For the most part they leave after 3 or 4 years when they've finished college. We aren't even talking tens of thousands in risk. I'm sure they'll use some agency labour to cover the larger away followings.

I do agree, how any sane person thinks they can turn Carlisle United into a multi million pound, profitable business seems extraordinary. There is a financial bubble in football right now which is clearly not sustainable.

I don't know about last year's changes but a lot of the previous changes were linked to insourcing catering because it was cheaper than subcontractors. These are not high paid staff, mainly youngsters on part-time minimum wage contracts for match days.

I'd imagine a lot are part-time matchday workers. Has stewarding been insured?

Really not pretty reading. Divide the losses by the ticket price then 23 league games .... we need to increase attendance by 6152 just to breakeven. We didn't get 12000 gates under Rudge!

He hasn't but he's had a foot injury for a few games. Forest have played him as a forward. I don't think Moore rates him and played him at wingback at Wednesday. He's not a prolific goal scorer but as a defender I'd rather face Massey. Moore seems to prefer Massey's industry to Mighton's flare, or Chislett. At some point Moore has got to try something to get us more on the front foot. I still think we need to win the next 3 games. Playing 2 strikers ( loosely speaking) isn't making us more productive in terms of goals. I think with the players we have 2 tens get more goals in the team. A lot depends on Ojo being fit as we'll get overpowered in central midfield with any of the other possible pairings. In the ideal world the 2 10s would be Garrity and Chislett. One, or maybe both, will be in central midfield on Saturday. Mighton and Weir can both play as 10s and I don't think either is less likely to score than Massey.

If Mighton plays it should be as a forward. Offers very little defensively. He is the only attacking player who offers something different and can turn defenses.

Done

The gulf between the haves and have nots in league 1 is enormous now. The standard is also way higher. As is the level of unrealistic expectation (begging) of money they expect an owner to spend from their own pockets on the club. The Shanahans have invested way more than the sum of all owners in the clubs history.