Players in and out

[Inny]

I’ve been moaning all summer about the lack of quality and little has changed. I’m unconvinced this squad will fare much better than last year.

 

My heart wants to be wrong. Yet my head tells me the best we can hope for is avoiding relegation.

I agree. The quality over quantity approach seems to be lacking at the Vale for the past few seasons and I hoped that Aspin would change that view. I'm impressed by some of the signings but reading his latest comments, i think Aspin thinks a few mistakes have been made already which is worrying. We can't afford to carry players again.

 

I am sure we will see more twists and turns before we kick off.

[valiant_593]

As far as I can see we have only signed three cast iron quality players at this level Brown Dodds and Joyce,the rest are gambles,where Aspin makes his move next will be interesting.

 

Personally I’d say brown, legge, Joyce, miller are all great signings. The lad from aldershot should be good also. Maybe we’ve signed one too many ‘chancers’ as aspin puts it?

[Rampant Zebra]

I am not sure about Legge so far unless he has improved since his woeful performance at Kidsgrove. Joyce looks steady and Manny may come good but I suspect he is a workhorse rather than a creative player.

[Jacob_123]

I’ve been moaning all summer about the lack of quality and little has changed. I’m unconvinced this squad will fare much better than last year.

 

My heart wants to be wrong. Yet my head tells me the best we can hope for is avoiding relegation.

 

I would disagree with that as the areas we were weakest is in goal and centre mid we’ve strengthened both. If we had an actual keeper last season we would’ve finished midtable!

[SourceOfTheTrent]

I’ve been moaning all summer about the lack of quality and little has changed. I’m unconvinced this squad will fare much better than last year.

 

My heart wants to be wrong. Yet my head tells me the best we can hope for is avoiding relegation.

I have similar reservations but looking around L2 summer signings with the odd exception the whole division has been recruiting in a manner similar to ourselves.

I think this is another step on the road to financial oblivion for lower league clubs, the finances between L1, L2 and the top two tiers of non-league are much of a muchness and the assembled squads are reflecting this. I bet most non-league recruits to L2 clubs won't be seeing a massive increase in salary.

We should be one if the stronger outfits in L2 financially but when the club is operated like a back street tat shop that potential advantage goes out of the window.

I trust Aspo's judgement and hope to see a much better team this season, however, I suspect we may have a slowish start as the team gels and settles into a preferred formation and I don't particularly expect a promotion challenge, we've a long way to come from how poor we were last season. That said I wouldn't be shocked if we did do well, the division is wide open.

(Creepy Crawley could do well this season, they seem to have enough financial clout given their signings of Vincelot and Felipe Morais, impressive recruits for L2).

[SourceOfTheTrent]

A comment on 'chancers' as someone mentioned earlier, to me our signing of Ricky Miller is a massive chancer gamble, like all of us I'd love to see him come good but given his track record of behaviour he gives the strong impression of being Britain's champion village idiot. Too many clubs have dumped him for my liking but - but - maybe the penny will drop and he'll focus on football? I say that more in hope than expectation though.

Mostly I just hope he doesn't cause problems in the camp.

[Erniemossrules]

Montano and Hannant on the left and Gibbons and Worrall on the right must be the best pairings.

[PV1973]

Interesting comments from Aspin about the new players. Signing any player is a gamble, so when you sign so many you’re bound to get some that won’t quite work out as expected. It’s early days though so plenty of time for that to change. From last season I thought Aspins core of the squad for this season would be Smith, Monty, Gibbons, Pope, Hannant & Worral with obviously 5 new signings around them. Brown is obviously nailed on but of the others my guess would be rawlinson, Joyce, Oyeleke, Miller, Dodds and quigley are the ones putting themselves in the frame for one of those other starting spots.

 

After 2 terrible seasons I’d be amazed if we can turn it round to become a promotion chasing side, I’m not sure that will come that quickly.

[geosname]

I think aspin was simply trying to manage expectations

[Iron Curtain]

Has anyone got a link to Aspin comments about some of the players not pulling up trees.

[onestepatatime]

Aspin is being honest, which is refreshing knowing some of the "comments" coming out of our Club these past few years.

 

How anyone can tell if any player is going to be successful is beyond me. Some players look good at certain Clubs but take them away and they can be poor at another Club. And vice-versa of course.

 

We have to , and most of the Valiants want to, trust Aspin in his quest to better our Team and prove successful. If he makes a few mistakes along the way, that's normal for a Division 2 Club on restricted finances.

 

 

I for one am happy that Neil has recognised early doors that maybe some of his acquisitions are not fitting into our style. Better now than half way through the season.

 

Someone on here remarked earlier that if we had had an experienced keeper last season we would not have finished so close to oblivion. That, plus the fact we needed urgently another(other than Tom) striker who could have scored goals, was in my opinion why we were so lacking.

 

Aspin appears to have got us a really good keeper and some of the forwards he's brought in may be the answer so yes we have a reason to be cheerful, if not ecstatic, about our prospects this time around.

 

 

If we can field a starting 11 of Aspin's choice and keep it fairly regularly then surely we can have a good season to build upon?

[valeparklife]

I'm happy with - Brown, Joyce, Legge, Oyeleke, Miller

 

The rest are gambles IMO.

 

Prove me wrong Vale.

[jeffers]

A comment on 'chancers' as someone mentioned earlier, to me our signing of Ricky Miller is a massive chancer gamble, like all of us I'd love to see him come good but given his track record of behaviour he gives the strong impression of being Britain's champion village idiot. Too many clubs have dumped him for my liking but - but - maybe the penny will drop and he'll focus on football? I say that more in hope than expectation though.

Mostly I just hope he doesn't cause problems in the camp.

 

So you know him well, you know the reasons why he went off the rails. Like anyone that has experienced the dark side he needs a fresh start and needs to leave the past in the past. Let’s move on and help him to help us achieve success.?

[Rampant Zebra]

I'm happy with - Brown, Joyce, Legge, Oyeleke, Miller

 

The rest are gambles IMO.

 

Prove me wrong Vale.

 

I think Brown and Joyce plus Dodds are the only players who are up to speed already. The rest are gambles, particularly Miller since we don't know the outcome of next weeks FA hearing yet.

[JRC]

From the 2 games I saw and last season Brown, Smith, Rawlinson, Gibbons, Joyce, Hannatt, Worral, Pope, Montano would all get in to most sides in this league. I'm also guessing Miller would. Legge was awful at Kidsgrove but paired with Kay they looked like players with similar weakness in terms of pace and was strong in terms of heading, so I think he'll be fine with a bit more mobility around him. As with most decent season if 13 or 14 key players stay fit we'll be ok. If 3 or 4 players get long-term injuries we'll struggle, but that's normal.

 

Outside the championship the difference between division 1 and National League North and South has narrowed. The top salaries in the national leagues for the best players are higher than averages in divisions 1 and 2. That means bringing the bigger players in from lower down they have to be considered as starters. Daniels and Angus would have been genuinely part time but someone like Oyeleke was fulltime players and you'd now expect to hit the ground running.