Burton A 2 Port Vale 0 POST MATCH COMMENTS

[valiant_593]

And what happens if those signings turn out even worse? There was a sensible choice in the summer, and there was a reckless idiotic choice.

 

I'm glad that Page and Smurf took the sensible option and am looking forward to a squad we can actually build over the next 3-4 years rather than signing 10 new players every summer and losing the best on free transfers a year later.

 

Listen I completely understand that but for me birchall, Yates Williamson ect were never worth offering a deal to. If be surprised if we signed a player worse than birchall on the wing. We won't build a squad worthy of league 1 either. It's clear out better players will move on, page won't be here that long either. His days are numbered.

[Yukon]

Your probably the main culprit on here for not accepting other viewpoints and always believing yours is correct, then throwing out petty insults to try and make your point stronger.

 

I would have loved us to replace them with a few youngsters that had been released by big clubs, to give them a second chance rather than players who are proven not to be good enough. You say birchall signed on reduced terms, brilliant just what we need. A player who offers nothing! There is no point, you say he and the others make up the squad but again there are other players out there who would play on a similar wage and offer more. Any young lad would offer more on the wing than birchall does.

 

My puerile moaning??? Love the assumption there, I've only started becoming displeased with page this last week and actually been very supportive on here of him, his style and the players.

 

I'm not even going to lower myself in a response to your first 'point'

 

Don't listen to the nasty man- did he hurt your feelings? If you're biting at my comments after all these years of posting then you are stupid!

 

So where are these youngsters? Do you think Sam Kelly offers as much as Birchall at the moment? Of course he ****ing doesn't. Those kids are not ready for league one having spent their previous time in academies. It would be a total car crash

 

I've not said anything pro or con Page thus far. I think he's doing okay but not having a striker and panic buying AJLS is going to be the undoing of him unless JJ turns out to be the next Anthony Martial.

 

Oh and if, like in your last paragraph you try and take the moral high ground, I suggest it isn't a complete contradiction of your first paragraph. Silly sausage

[Paul6754]

Just seen the highlights, Uche's dismissal was harsh. The first yellow card their defender didn't jump (he bottled it) whereas Uche ran and jumped and won the ball, the result was that his head was at the same level as Uche's elbow, Uche's elbow was in a "normal position" (by his side not raised above his head) and there didn't seem to be any deliberate move of the elbow into the guy's face just the momentum of Uche's body taking him into the guy, very harsh yellow. As for the 2nd yellow their No 4 pushes Uche and leaves a foot in as he goes by him and although he did go down easily there was contact, some of these are given and some not. It certainly was not an "Ashley Cole dive",

[valiant_593]

Don't listen to the nasty man- did he hurt your feelings? If you're biting at my comments after all these years of posting then you are stupid!

 

So where are these youngsters? Do you think Sam Kelly offers as much as Birchall at the moment? Of course he ****ing doesn't. Those kids are not ready for league one having spent their previous time in academies. It would be a total car crash

 

I've not said anything pro or con Page thus far. I think he's doing okay but not having a striker and panic buying AJLS is going to be the undoing of him unless JJ turns out to be the next Anthony Martial.

 

Oh and if, like in your last paragraph you try and take the moral high ground, I suggest it isn't a complete contradiction of your first paragraph. Silly sausage

 

Christ your boring.

[Howjy04]

As an owner, hes put in more money than anyone else in the clubs history. He deserves credit for much of what hes done, not constant haranguing because he wouldn't offer Pope a better deal.

 

Pope had one exceptional season. He was brilliant that year. But Paul Wildes gave him a big contract based on that ONE season. Would I want us to be paying Tom Pope what Bury are? Not in a million years.

 

Agreed,Tom had an exceptional season in a league below.Last 2 seasons his scoring record has been reasonable,in league 1, but not brilliant.He is a player in decline and I wouldn't be paying 5k a week for 3 years.BTW he scored 5 goals in 41 games in his first season at the Vale.Uche has 6 so far.

[Howjy04]

Just seen the highlights, Uche's dismissal was harsh. The first yellow card their defender didn't jump (he bottled it) whereas Uche ran and jumped and won the ball, the result was that his head was at the same level as Uche's elbow, Uche's elbow was in a "normal position" (by his side not raised above his head) and there didn't seem to be any deliberate move of the elbow into the guy's face just the momentum of Uche's body taking him into the guy, very harsh yellow. As for the 2nd yellow their No 4 pushes Uche and leaves a foot in as he goes by him and although he did go down easily there was contact, some of these are given and some not. It certainly was not an "Ashley Cole dive",

That's the way I saw it.

[Bucknall Rob]

My viewpoint of the game might be slightly different to others. We played fine until the red, perhaps even the better side. After that it became clear that we weren't going to put major emphasis on scoring until we had to (ie they scored). Whilst it was a nailbiter we were holding our own and the lads were putting a shift in despite being outnumbered, aside from maybe Daniel who look a bit disinterested 2nd half. Admittedly it's a tough ask up top when you have 10 men but the lack of closing down from him was exasperating at times. He could've defended more from the front. I didn't think they were going to score with 11 men. They looked out of ideas and dispirited until their red. When their red happened we thought we could win it, we lost our shape and allowed them in for their goals. I think we would have got a point if their red card hadn't happened.

 

I don't know who you can blame for the loss of shape. It's easy to blame the manager, but the players have to take some of the blame too. Having been in situations similar to this in amateur football, a team can change mentality by themselves following a game-changing incident such as that. I found it poor that we went from what we'd done from 24 to 79 minutes to the performance we witnessed in the last 11 minutes + injury time. Due to our lack of attacking intent, we may not have deserved a point but they'd worked incredibly hard for it so to see themflop like they did was tough. I would say both goals had incidents prior to them that could have led to play being stopped and a free kick/penalty being awarded to Vale.

 

Having read quite a few comments on this thread, I'm not really sure what people expected Page to do following the red card. Yes, it wasn't the greatest performance but there extenuating circumstances for what we did following Uche's red. Definitely negative but was it working? Absolutely. He tried to get us a point from a tough situation and it almost worked. I don't lay any fault for that at Page's door, but the last 11 minutes were unfathomable from my point of view.

 

There's clearly not enough goals in the strikeforce. I don't think we have them in the squad either. I like Uche. He's a handful and I think would work well with a poacher. He creates mismatches in the opposition defence and they struggle to handle him when he's on. He was doing that on Saturday until his stupid 2nd yellow (Regardless of contact, it was ridiculous to put himself in the situation where the ref could book him. He couldn't wait to get his cards out).

 

I don't think we're missing anything else from our 1st eleven. The squad has issues and there aren't many gamechangers on the bench. Injuries are costing us and our squad isn't strong enough. Page went another way, but I would have preferred us to have a strong 18 players, a good 1st eleven with versatile players on the bench that can play a number of positions in replacement roles. Then the squad backed up by development squad and emergency loan players. That was his choice and nothing can change that now. Will it be his ultimate downfall? Possibly, but I have seen enough from us this season to believe this is a blip and we can get back on track. I haven't really heard any dissent in the stands at games.

 

Do you really think the Vale were the better side 11 v 11, the first 25 minutes were two s*** sides playing rubbish football, both equally as bad as each other, we had no chances that i can think of when we had equal numbers.

 

I am not the biggest fan of Daniel fan but thought he was one of the ones who put a decent shift in, he had no support, not sure the same could be said about Dodds who offered nothing, admittedly playing out of position.

[Yukon]

Christ your boring.

 

Keep replying though don't you flower!?! It's because I'm right isn't it!?!

[Davebrad]

Just seen the highlights, Uche's dismissal was harsh. The first yellow card their defender didn't jump (he bottled it) whereas Uche ran and jumped and won the ball, the result was that his head was at the same level as Uche's elbow, Uche's elbow was in a "normal position" (by his side not raised above his head) and there didn't seem to be any deliberate move of the elbow into the guy's face just the momentum of Uche's body taking him into the guy, very harsh yellow. As for the 2nd yellow their No 4 pushes Uche and leaves a foot in as he goes by him and although he did go down easily there was contact, some of these are given and some not. It certainly was not an "Ashley Cole dive",

 

hi,

same here, just back from a holiday and watched it on tele, for the 2nd Uche went down but did none of the rolling about holding his leg routine, he got straight back up and was going after the ball when the ref blew, we can't challenging the yellow can we, only a straight red, but is he getting a dive reputation? he will only miss 1 match, hope we don't miss him...

[Andyregs]

So enlighten me, who would he have played if he'd released Birchall, Lloyd etc?

 

We have a squad of 30 players. If you can't think of who to play with a couple of them, then surely there has been a total balls up with the squad building? Too much dead wood maybe? And if the manager doesn't feel that he can replace 3 lower wage players with one decent player, then no wonder he bottled the retained list like he did. You make out that hose members of the squad are paid peanuts, but three of the, together could easily be replaced by one decent player. There are teams in this division who pay peanuts for most of their players.

[Yukon]

We have a squad of 30 players. If you can't think of who to play with a couple of them, then surely there has been a total balls up with the squad building? Too much dead wood maybe? And if the manager doesn't feel that he can replace 3 lower wage players with one decent player, then no wonder he bottled the retained list like he did. You make out that hose members of the squad are paid peanuts, but three of the, together could easily be replaced by one decent player. There are teams in this division who pay peanuts for most of their players.

 

One decent player doesn't cover a couple of injuries though! If you swap three out and only bring one in in League One, you'd be stuffed. Saying we have 30 first team players is nonsense because a good percentage of them are not first team ready and are here based on potential- I keeping with the chairman's vision

 

I'm not saying I want all of our players anywhere near the first team and think the recruitment was wrong but I also accept our situation. Banging on about the retained list is pointless and the constant whining makes people look like spoilt brats, spitting out their dummies

[Andyregs]

One decent player doesn't cover a couple of injuries though! If you swap three out and only bring one in in League One, you'd be stuffed. Saying we have 30 first team players is nonsense because a good percentage of them are not first team ready and are here based on potential- I keeping with the chairman's vision

 

I'm not saying I want all of our players anywhere near the first team and think the recruitment was wrong but I also accept our situation. Banging on about the retained list is pointless and the constant whining makes people look like spoilt brats, spitting out their dummies

 

But thats the problem, having a percentage for potential and a section that arent good enough leaves us with no depth. It isnt a budget issue, its a poorly balanced squad. Those there for potential, should be there because if necessary they can step in to play, otherwise they aren't good enough. Any other gaps can be filled with emergency loans.

[Yukon]

But thats the problem, having a percentage for potential and a section that arent good enough leaves us with no depth. It isnt a budget issue, its a poorly balanced squad. Those there for potential, should be there because if necessary they can step in to play, otherwise they aren't good enough. Any other gaps can be filled with emergency loans.

 

I totally agree, the balance is well out; my point is though, that the balance was out way before we started recruiting in the summer. The net effect of this is because there are too many not yet ready for first team action, we need players like Birchall etc to cover. I'm not mindlessly supporting these players and agree in an ideal world they'd have moved on but I'd rather not end up relying on youth too early. How many players with great potential have we had come through the ranks here, only for them to get thrust in too early and ended up not living up to the hype?

 

For me, Smurf is doing it right, slowly but surely. If we can bring an Enoch through each year, we suddenly become a far more sustainable entity. It also means that players like those retained this year, will not need to be retained in the future, it just requires a bit of patience. Whether or not I would trust Page with another summer's recruitment is totally different argument...