Matchday Thread: Port Vale v Northampton T

[fuzzyvalefan]

I'm confident of a win in this one. The performance last week building on a solid display at Shrewsbury should give us a bit of confidence. Some of the foreign lads are really starting to come good. Particularly like the look of De Freitas- he has that drive and energy that really matters in this division and a fair bit of skill to go with it. It was still 4-2-3-1 against Hartlepool but it worked because Bruno actually played a striker who can hold a ball up and bring the three into play. Would still prefer to see Cilia and Jones as a front 2 although Jones seemed to have much more license to come inside on Saturday and actually the slight ambiguity of his position seemed to allow him to find space away from defenders. One change i would make if possible though is Thomas for Killy if he is fit. Thomas is a very good player at this level, while Kelly just doesn't do it for me- continues to promise a lot and deliver little.

 

So team for Saturday:

 

..............Alnwick..............

 

Taylor....Streete...Smith....Kiko

 

..........Amoros....Tavares........

 

Jones........De Freitas......Thomas

 

.............Cicilia...............

 

 

That looks a bloody decent side to me.

[samspoons]

Now, i am no big fan of kelly nd still think he is a bit light weight. Having said this he did have a hand in 3 of the goals on sday, and a bit of a free role seems to suit his game.

[Conrad]

Personaly I think Kelly is underrated and does a lot more than some people seem to think..

[Jinkin John Jeffers]

Yes - because he wasn't given the chance of an extended run to build up his confidence!

And fitness, he missed a lot of preseason before last season but was never given a chance to build fitness. A manager that picks Duffy and mccivern before streete needs there head read.

[Santa]

Yes - because he wasn't given the chance of an extended run to build up his confidence!

He was though. McGivern on the other hand was properly frozen out by Page at the start of last season, he only started a decent run of games around the Burton away game in October if memory serves me right.

[valiant_593]

I don't think either of them were ready at the time, we had better players available.

 

Streete was better than McGivern.

[valiant_593]

He was though. McGivern on the other hand was properly frozen out by Page at the start of last season, he only started a decent run of games around the Burton away game in October if memory serves me right.

 

Streete had one bad game at Exeter and never got another look in!

[bycarspete]

Personaly I think Kelly is underrated and does a lot more than some people seem to think..

 

Yes agree lots of ability, but lets himself down by going to ground to easy in the tackle,needs to man up a bit and could develop into a valid member of our squad.

[valeparklife]

I have nothing against Rob Page, I didn't like him as a manager but I think he handled himself very well. Smurf was a bit of an arse to him really wasn't he?

 

Page was ok. That's it. I didn't like his slow, boring style of play or his reluctance to give younger players a chance. I didn't like his stubbornness in playing the same under-performing players every week (like when Williamson went twenty something games without a goal yet was the first name on the team sheet) or when we'd watch someone give a mediocre display and Page would say they were "magnificent" afterwards. And obviously every post match interview uttering "we go again".

 

I will give him a clap as he did his best for us.

[Hagrid]

Page's comments today are very decent and he acknowledges he owes a lot to us.

 

Considering Smurf's comments about Bodin being 'the brains' and then admitting he'd offered Page a lower budget in the hope he would seek alternative employment, I wouldn't have begrudged Page for making some digs.

 

People I know who trained/worked at Vale have nothing bad to say about him personally. He comes across as a sound bloke, and I certainly won't be booing him. I'm half tempted to applaud him for sticking it out for 3 years with Smurf as his boss.

[SFBT]

Yes agree lots of ability, but lets himself down by going to ground to easy in the tackle,needs to man up a bit and could develop into a valid member of our squad.

 

Yes, I am noticing that he is contributing more.

Not there yet, but progressing.

[Guppy 4 England]

Page's comments today are very decent and he acknowledges he owes a lot to us.

 

Considering Smurf's comments about Bodin being 'the brains' and then admitting he'd offered Page a lower budget in the hope he would seek alternative employment, I wouldn't have begrudged Page for making some digs.

 

People I know who trained/worked at Vale have nothing bad to say about him personally. He comes across as a sound bloke, and I certainly won't be booing him. I'm half tempted to applaud him for sticking it out for 3 years with Smurf as his boss.

 

He's a tosser. Why re-sign all that squad knowing he was leaving.....good job smurf reduced the budget otherwise we would have had a squad full of ****.

[Guppy 4 England]

Rob Page always struck me as a decent man being who has more class and dignity in his toe-nail clippings than the kind of person who makes ^that^ kind of statement has in their entire body.

 

Why would anyone give a monkeys what you think?

[PV1973]

He's a tosser. Why re-sign all that squad knowing he was leaving.....good job smurf reduced the budget otherwise we would have had a squad full of ****.

Why wouldn't he do the list? You don't just stop doing the job because you may be leaving. Plus players had to know where they stood with contracts ending or reduced terms being offered by the club.

 

Besides the plan from Smurf was to reduce the budget and force out the players he didn't want and the manager too. That ended up happening, so in that respect Smurfs master plan worked. Smurf could easily have retracted the list or changed deals if he wanted to, but he didn't because he was party to the contract changes with Page on that list too.

 

Its the chairman not Page that put the club in a difficult position.

[Hagrid]

He's a tosser. Why re-sign all that squad knowing he was leaving.....good job smurf reduced the budget otherwise we would have had a squad full of ****.

 

He didn't know he was leaving until Northampton made an approach for him. Prior to that, he was working with the meagre funds he had been given. He was looking for a move but he had to plan for his squad at Vale in case he could not find another job. Your failure to grasp this is fairly staggering.

 

I don't understand the vitriol towards a man who, at the very worse, was average-to-poor for us. He seems more reviled than Sinnott or Gannon, simply for having the audacity to move to a club who offered him a better budget at that time, and were not run by a volatile chairman who one week wanted to sell the club and the next had shipped in half of Europe's 3rd tier players.