Port Vale 0 - Walsall 5 Post Match Comments

[Michael]

Certain things are learned by keepers from an early age and normally become standard operating procedure like claiming crosses and when producing a save push it as far wide as to take it out of the danger zone, our Jak does neither.

[philpvfc]

Alnwick is as good as the rest of our defence...simply not good enough. To lose Neal is a major set back and again next season we will continue to leak goals we I with a quality goalkeeper we would not. I am not blaming Jak for our defeat yesterday and a couple of the goals he had no chance but I do feel he is no way near as good as so many have been saying all season. Our defence needs some pace in it, Duffy is a decent player but far too slow, he needs someone with pace alongside him which at the moment we have not got.

[Tomo]

All keepers have weak areas in our league, otherwise they wouldn't be in our league. He is young, & has a few areas he needs to develop on.

 

You're being far too harsh. We are not in the PL.

[geosname]

Certain things are learned by keepers from an early age and normally become standard operating procedure like claiming crosses and when producing a save push it as far wide as to take it out of the danger zone, our Jak does neither.

 

That may work in subbuteo bit in reality its theory

[Michael]

Come for a cross in Subbuteo lol

[Harborne Valiant]

Very bad day at the office. We weren't up for it at all, which is disappointing given a final performance really could've helped push some season tickets. Walsall were obviously well up for it too, the disparity between the two sides in terms of determination was key from the start. Page got it wrong with the tactics, they relished us playing 3-5-2 and found plenty of space in front of us and behind us. However the players have a lot to answer for as well, they was not a performance any of them should be proud of, poor tactics or not. A perfect storm for failure.

 

However we've finished with 65 points. This was a side that the bookies and illustrious posters on here gave little to no chance of staying up. To finish where we have has been impressive for me and the home form has been a highlight. We've been a striker short all season and a centre-half short most of the season whilst Innis has been out. I would say the recruitment from Page was good last summer, and I think he can find some gems again. I was encouraged by his interview on Radio Stoke yesterday post-game. It seems we're going with a smaller squad with more quality in the 1st eleven. I think that has to be the way forward with the smaller budget.

 

This.

 

We looked OK for the first 20 minutes, and my mate I took to the game said that he didn't think Walsall looked anything special.

 

Perhaps Alnwick could have done a bit better with a couple of the goals, but the midfield and defence left him very exposed. Two of the goals were absolute screamers that were unsaveable.

 

Thought we really missed Grant today. Brown is too old and just jogs around with rash tackles. (Mind you, at least he made a couple).

 

McGivern looked lost. One day Duffy will stop diving in for every tackle and stay on his feet. Streete was very poor.

 

Time to draw a line under this season, which I think has been encouraging, and start afresh next season.

[NellyTheValiant]

And the first for not pushing it far enough wide out of danger.

 

I get it now, you're joking right? Blistering shot from just outside the box that went through McGiverns legs, could have taken a touch off his heel. Did well to get a hand on it at all never mind directing it. Perhaps someone should have tried strolling out to their bloke in order to stop the shot in the first place.

[bomber]

Give our lads a break! Its not easy playing in flip flops ! Lets hope we find our boots for next season .

[onestepatatime]

It was obvious the Yam Yams would be very up for this game and give their all. What I expected also though was some fight from our lads even though strictly speaking this was an end of season game for us. However what mystified, angered and embarrassed me was the complete and utter unprofessional, unacceptable, lack of any commitment from so many of our squad.

 

I can excuse players who don't have the required ability if they at least give their best but frankly yesterday I experienced a woeful bunch of non interested wasters taking the mick out of us Valiants!

 

O'Connor gave one of the most pathetic performance I have seen in a Vale shirt. From the start it was clear he wanted the season to be over so he could find his "Club nearer to Lincoln." He has become a liability and if, as it's reported he is fed up of travelling then he should not have been chosen yesterday. Was it not evident to RP before the match that he was totally uninterested? It most certainly was from me and the thousands of other Vale fans in the stadium.

 

Duffy and McGivern and Streete were garbage and that does an injustice to garbage! Never in a month of Sundays will we begin to improve with any of those in our back 4, sorry.

 

There was no service at all to the front men but we did have several chances to score. If Sam Foley, our unsung hero of the season had not been on the park it's frightening to think how many we would have lost by, although 5 at home is shocking enough!

 

Sam Kelly ought to be totally ashamed of himself. His introduction simply showed that he shirked EVERY tackle in a way that a school kid would have been embarrassed at. He has shown flashes of inspiration but if we are to rely on him coming through the ranks with any kind of enthusiasm and fight for the game then I suspect we will be waiting a very long time!

 

I could go on but suffice to say everyone of us there yesterday will not tolerate performances, or more appropriately, non performances in a Vale shirt like that. It was not the first occasion either this season we as fans have had to voice our disapproval of apparent lack of effort. That is worrying me. No matter how improved some say RP has become as our manager he has to get teams on the pitch that will play for Vale and give the paying fans belief that we are giving every game as much as possible. Once he does that he will get me stamp of approval. Until then, like the squad he is work in progress.

 

I am renewing my 2 season tickets so don't accuse me of bad mouthing Vale as an armchair keyboard warrior. I am passionate about the Club and want the best. Although we have had a reasonably good season taking into account everything I still have the feeling there is so much more to come IF we manage to get in some class players to supplement the ones that can improve and want success for Vale as much as the fan base.

[melv]

I get it now, you're joking right? Blistering shot from just outside the box that went through McGiverns legs, could have taken a touch off his heel. Did well to get a hand on it at all never mind directing it. Perhaps someone should have tried strolling out to their bloke in order to stop the shot in the first place.

 

:laugh:

[bookworm]

You can't exclude the one positive result out of those. Your reasoning isn't justified. We beat them, whether they were re-building or not. If you exclude the 5 goals Walsall scored today we'd have drawn 0-0. Strange logic.

 

The second point about AJ's shot that hit the post. It was from a tight angle and ended up being a corner. So the keeper pushed it onto the front post. Had he not saved it chances are it would have gone across the goal.

 

and if my aunt had gonads she'd have been my uncle.

[Tenement Funster]

Well what an end to the season. There can't be many lessons learnt from such a performance and some of the knee jerk reactions on here smack of a bit of a short memory.

 

We were very poor both in defence and in midfield with Sam Foley really the only one coming out with any credit. I can't say I've ever seen Foley perform under a 6/10 this season and had Page not forced Oaks back into the middle of the park Sam could have easily been up there for player of the season. He may not have the technical ability of some of the other midfielders but he works hard, has enough about him to go past the odd man and does create the odd thing. A very good player and underated in my opinion.

 

In terms of Michael O'Connor he needs to decide what he wants next season and not what he has to do. I feel he signed on again for us this season through gritted teeth. Now I don't blame him for not liking the journey he has to make every day, he has two young boys and probably feels he's losing time with them to sit on the A50. But he is a footballer and where is lives doesn't really lead itself to ease of transfers. If Scunthorpe don't want him he'll have to drop down a division and there's no guarantees there. After this season would we miss him? Probably not as long as we get someone else in in that area. Michael Brown has looked a bit off the pace in the last couple of games, he has the passion and the ability but I wonder if his age is starting to creep up on him.

 

In defence we looked appalling and I see a few have short memories with Richard Duffy who for me in the first half of the season was outstanding. He looked poor yesterday and has had some bad games but at his age I wouldn't be adverse to keeping him. He goes to ground too easily but is an intelligent defender on the most part and puts his body on the line far more than any other centre half we have. Ryan McGivern was an unfortunate fall guy yesterday as I didn't think he was doing too badly. Over a season though has he got what it takes to be a top League One centre half? Not for me. He isn't great in the air 99% of the time and is very prone to mistakes. For a man that a lot of people had wanted to see at left back his distribution leaves a lot to be desired too. As for the full backs Purkiss and Dicko have more than done enough to justify places in the first team next season but we do need to look at the centre halves as Remi Streete definitely has the ability but his application and commitment are under scrutiny now with a very abstract performance followed up by another injury. At the start of the season I thought he was outstanding but then the whole Inniss saga really dented his chances of staying in the team and eventually he dropped out of the squad and whether it through ego or confidence something went wrong.

 

Finally up front we lacked a huge amount of anything yesterday. Ajay and JJ are individually very good player and I think we all have high hopes for JJ Hooper but we need to look at how we build around these pair. Service has been poor all season with a lack of a creative midfielder and then the removal of wingers so there is much work to be done in pre-season and a replacement for Robinson is crucial. Louis Dodds has never been my favourite player but it's in games like that yesterday when you realise what he can do for the side on his day.

 

Finally Jak Alnwick has come under some criticism recently and unfortunately does seem to be falling under the Vale keeper curse of getting worse the longer you stay here but he is incredibly young yet and we've gone from defending very well in front of him to opening like the red sea far too often. He will improve and Neal will be gone so let's get behind the lad as we will most likely have a very inexperienced keeper trio next season.

 

So a bad end to a fairly decent season. With some big chops and some sensible additions we are more than capable of chasing those play offs again next season. A big well done to Rob Page who changed my opinion on him and we are progressing. Let's see if the budget allows us to continue.

[HughesyScoredWithHisKnee]

I need a lie down after reading this thread.

[windsorvale4ever]

seen the highlights a few times now and 2 goals were amazing even though we did give them the freedom to have pop shots from distance way to easy, one was offside we gifted them the other 2, but we had enough chances ourselves to get something out of the game we just aren't clinincal enough and our luck wasn't in on the day it was a carbon copy of the burton game. I really enjoyed a final day playing a team with something to play for even though some of our players were on holiday, the result wasn't what we wanted but a great atmosphere good attendance. disappointed but cant wait for june 22nd and the start of a new season

[Jacko51]

And the first for not pushing it far enough wide out of danger.

 

The first job of a keeper is to stop the shot going in the net which he did - the fact that it was necessary because two defenders had cocked up in the build up is not his fault. The fact that the shot came through a defenders legs and probably meant he saw it late didn't help. And the fact that the bloke who put it in the net when he was offside with no defender challenging him equally didn't help. But if you want to blame Alnwick for it that's fine.