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JRC
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Posts posted by JRC
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21 minutes ago, Rockape99 said:
I agree on all except Sang who had a whole season being shoehorned in right back / wing back /centre half and he a midfielder. He deserves at chance in midfield as he done what’s asked of him in a strange positions
He hasn't played the whole season being shoehorned in at RWB, he's played a few times in central midfield. He's just been poor when he's had the opportunity. His best game by far was as a right centrehalf. Despite someone recently changing his Wikipedia page Sang has played over 75% of his games at rightback or right wingback.
Initially I had thought his problem in midfield and on the right was a lack of pace. He actually isn't that slow running forward. He is that slow running backwards in defence. He also just doesn't read the game defensively in either position. Whatever decisions he makes defensively end up being wrong. His general passing is just hit and miss. His only attribute this season has been his crossing at times.
He'll still he here next season but he's in danger of falling out of the league for good thereafter. He's never held a regular position at either of his loans, Cardiff or with Vale. He's 25 in a couple of weeks and should now be at his peak. With the exception of the one game at right centrehalf his peak has looked several leagues below league 2.
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21 hours ago, PV1973 said:
Wasn’t he up front for us?
Played as a winger for us. Doesn't surprise me he's playing a little further back. Don't think he played a lot for us but my recollection was he was better running into space than creating his own space in tight situations. He was also quite well built. It's not unusual for that type of young winger to end up more successful at fullback. He's dropped down to National League a couple of times as I'm pretty sure he was at Aldershot for a while after leaving one of the London clubs. I can't think of any players who've made a success of their 3rd opportunity at league level.
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I suspect this will be at least a 2 year rebuild. Hopefully we can get Walters and Shorrock tied down on contracts. Dipepa will almost certainly leave but that will give us some money to play with. Priority has to be sorting the perennial leftback/ left wingback position and centreforward. Also tough calls on Chislett and Garrity as they only have 12 months on their contracts. I'd be surprised if either ever sign new contracts; so do we cash in and reinvest, or accept we lose both in 12 months? If we keep those 2 I think we need to play both just behind a main striker. Garrity is a little wasted as a sitting midfield player. If we'd recruited a decent midfield player to play alongside Ojo with Garrity further forward I suspect we'd have stayed up.
We are stuck with quite a lot of the squad. Positive is the 5 youth players have shown some fortitude in difficult times. We need midfield reinforcement to play alongside Ojo if he stays. We are stuck with 5 centrehalves (Lowe can't play any other position) unless someone is daft enough to buy one. Sang is a conundrum to solve. There is something there and he's under contract. He's not a rightback or holding midfield player. Hopefully Clark can play a full season.
If we can solve the centreforward and leftback problem I think we have enough to be just behind the playoffs.
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Well at least we showed some heart today. If we'd played like today second half against Exeter we'd still be in with a chance. Bottom line there were 7 poor sides in the league. Our results home and away against the other 6 (7 points in 11 games against those teams) has cost us dearly. The bottom line is the other bad teams picked up 26 points against us and with the exception of Cambridge and Burton they've done less well than us against sides outside that mini league. Can't remember the Cambridge game, so I suspect I was on a plane somewhere. Carlisle, Burton, Fleetwood, Cheltenham and Shrewsbury were no better than us overall, vitally they were just streetwise enough to take points off us in tight games.
Overall this season Portsmouth, Peterborough, Bolton and Derby clearly have way more quality than the rest. When at their best those 4 are better than the rest at their best. It's unrealistic to expect that type of quality in a club of our size. Outside those 4 I do feel we are able to compete; provided young players come through, we are able to recruit a little better and probably have a season with a bit of luck linked to injuries to key players. Big question for next season is do we look for experience in the hope of a quick return; or younger players with the potential to develop into league 1 players.
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5 minutes ago, Powerline said:
Christ just seen the stats. Thought we knew we needed to win!
The only stat that matters is 0 - 0. They have some very very good players. I'm not sure that any of our 11 would get on their bench. Listened to the home audio on iplayer going home from the beach prior to kickoff. They are prone to losing games on the counter when all over teams. Think that is the only hope. There is no way we have the players to play this Bolton side off the park.
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3 hours ago, Fosse69 said:
9 promotions 9 relegations for me, unfortunately the gulf between L1 and L2 is getting bigger, the Championship is now massive. As with the FA Cup fiasco the only decisions are about money for the few.
I'd agree with that. The gulf between league 1 and 2 is massive this time. The other difference during this league one stay has been how few of our players were ready for the step up. Proctor, Wilson, Garrity, Worrall, Connor Hall and Smith were probably the only players in any way good enough. Proctor and Wilson had unusual relatively injury free seasons when we went up. Worrall was very much at the end of his career. When we went up in 86 we had Jones, Earle, Bromage and Walker; who were all young enough to kick on and old enough to be experienced.
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35 minutes ago, darren1810 said:
The stats in general always seem to be cyclical. Hope I'm wrong but I don't see it for a few years. Maybe 5 years till we get back up.
Maybe, it's never taken more than 5 years to get out of league 2/4. I'd be a little surprised if we go straight back up.
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24 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:
A word of advice to stay away from social media when relegation is confirmed. We’ll rightly get pelters and it’s wholly unedifying to engage.
We are all grown men/women and please act like that when we’re relegated. Try not to make a holy show of yourself.
Evey season roughly 1 : 6 teams get relegated. I think this will be my 7th relegation in 55 seasons. It's never been the end of the world some predict. Yes it's extremely disappointing but history also shows we bounce back.
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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.
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7 hours ago, philpvfc said:
Just hope Carol doesn’t lose interest. Can’t see any big money spenders wanting to buy the club, certainly not to invest their own money in to the club and get the club to thrive. Carol has some big decisions to make, bring in the right personal, invest a higher percentage in to the playing side and we can turn things around again. Our biggest problem has left the club, get a decent recruitment team in and things can become better very quickly, look how many players we brought in on our promotion year, it can be done.
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.
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5 minutes ago, darren1810 said:
I had the draw at 4/1 as soon as they made it 2-1. For some reason only known to myself I didn't foresee a defeat which was 16/1 at 2-1 .
If the bookies were watching the game at 2-1 they'd have offered 10-1 odds on for Exeter to win.
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7 minutes ago, Paul6754 said:
In 62 years of watching the Vale I've never seen a Vale team capitulate like that, no leaders on the field, no one wanted to take responsibility or charge of the ball, WTF.
Why does a team 2-0 up come out for the 2nd half and sit back and stroll around rather than press high up the field with intensity and effort, damn disgusting.
I'm gobsmacked and gutted.
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.
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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.
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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.
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13 minutes ago, Vtid said:
Van der Laan! What a player he was
Came as a centreforward. Came back each preseason 2 stone overweight! Became a great midfielder.
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1 hour ago, Warren said:
I think another phenomenon at clubs like Port Vale is that some players stick around who could play at higher level. There can be different reasons for that, albeit I'm saying only a few players have been like that. My take on Shuker was that he was a fraction of the player I remember at Tranmere. Right at the very end of his career.
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!
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29 minutes ago, Rampant Zebra said:
What about Ian Bogie? He was quite good
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.
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28 minutes ago, Warren said:
I think another phenomenon at clubs like Port Vale is that some players stick around who could play at higher level. There can be different reasons for that, albeit I'm saying only a few players have been like that. My take on Suker was that he was a fraction of the player I remember at Tranmere. Right at the very end of his career.
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.
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47 minutes ago, Mellor! said:
So we're losing top end League 1 money, to be potentially relegated from League 1.
Cheers Dave.
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.
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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.
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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.
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25 minutes ago, Vtid said:
It was Ipswich mate 😉
He didn't score against Ipswich, although I still think that was his best game.
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14 hours ago, MelbourneValiant said:
At any level, any footballer played out of position may say that they are happy just to play, the reality is that is will destroy them. They become professionals in their position by playing well in that position all of their lives then you think they may have to change at a professional level?
Even the discussion of this shows how bad we are. Plant scored a few goals last season I think, every player, rookie or veteren should always always always be in their natural position.
Just my opinion as a Sunday league player mind. 😀
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.
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44 minutes ago, MelbourneValiant said:
A couple of things, more money for Vale as folk like me gave up on Ifollow years ago due to the less than acceptable quality in the first three seasons.
It was mentioned a while ago that games would be streamed on Sky Sports outside of the 3pm blackout, therefore it makes sense to close down iFollow domestically.
If iFollow continues overseas then its a win win for all.
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.
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Summer transfer rumours and speculation
in Port Vale present
Posted
I think you are spot on. The problem with placing under performing players on the transfer list is you can't really replace them until they move. The seasons we've listed a few players have tended to end badly. Having 3 or 4 unhappy players inside the club doesn't seem to end well in general. Short-term the focus needs to be replacing what we can. We must have spent a reasonable amount on the loans, so there's some money there.
They also need to revisit the quality to quantity argument. Last season there was a lack of quality, yet when injuries hit there was a lack of quantity. My own opinion is our best 11 was good enough to stay up. 2 or 3 injuries and we were miles off. I don't think we had more than average injuries.