Match Thread - Notts County v Port Vale

[Biddulph_PV]

I can't believe what I am reading. We may have turned a corner? It was a great point? What???? To me, that cemented our relegation. How many clear cut chances did we create where you can say "We should have scored"? 1? 2? We couldn't score against the worst team in the football league, Askey drops the only guy who has scored in ten years. Askey needs to do one, he is out of his depth. We are down, there are no two ways about about.

 

Totally agree. We’ve scored one in five, only three in ten and against the worst team in the entire football league play with just one aging, half-fit, out-of-form centre-forward whilst keeping three players who can score on the bench. Which ever way you look at it, totally indefensible in my view. A point will not be enough and I agree that could be the result that sinks us.

[Walter]

Yeah we created chances. But we failed to score and drew with the worst team in the football league.

 

Team selection was wrong...again.

 

They are proper ****. You have to beat teams like that.

 

How can people say Joyce and Conlon were good. I honestly don't understand.

[Upfromnowhere]

Totally agree. We’ve scored one in five, only three in ten and against the worst team in the entire football league play with just one aging, half-fit, out-of-form centre-forward whilst keeping three players who can score on the bench. Which ever way you look at it, totally indefensible in my view. A point will not be enough and I agree that could be the result that sinks us.

 

Totally agree with everything but the last point.

However, where I do agree, and what could sink us is if teams around us, most certainly below us, go on an unbeaten run of just two matches and get two victories, because even allowing for the fact that we were discernibly better yesterday, on reflection we were playing against a team that have been dire all season, and against who we could neither beat or even score against, and it's our constant inability to score has to change or, you're right, we are sunk

[Santa]

I think if you could somehow merge the best bits of Conlon and the best bits of Hannant then you'd have a player. They're two curate eggs. The weaknesses in their respective games explain why they're here.

[Erniemossrules]

Is Askey any improvement on Aspin?

He has continued where Aspin left off with negative tactics to try to not lose and poor team selection.

He has players on the bench Miller,Whitfield and Montano who can score goals but perseveres with playing Pope up front on his own marked by two players.

He had the perfect chance with games against teams around us to put some light between us and the bottom teams but has achieved one draw in five games.

He seems like an headless chicken running round blaming luck and poor decisions for the reason we aren’t winning games.We now have a difficult game against Mansfield on Saturday but he won’t change it and go more positive to try to win the game.A draw against the bottom team in the league is all we can expect with the team he picked on Saturday.

To say I was disappointed when I saw the team selection is an understatement and I wish I hadn’t bothered going all the way to Nottingham and stayed at home.He will make excuses that he inherited this team from Aspin but is he using the players at his disposal well enough to score goals and win games.The midfielders can only come up and support Pope if allowed to but seem to be more interested in defending than getting forward.

I keep hoping he will start with Pope and Miller up front because Miller is an handful to opposing defenders and will take pressure off Pope and will definitely be up for it against his old Mansfield team.

[smithie]

I don't think we'll even need 42 points to stay up to be honest. We're in effect 5 points ahead of Macclesfield with the goal difference. It goes without saying we must beat Yeovil.

[bycars rob]

Good team selection, I had my doubts but the likes of Joyce, Conlon, and Hannant all shone as did Clark who surprisingly replaced Gibbons.

A better result for us than for County and had the ref put on a black and white striped shirt at the end I wouldn`t have been surprised.

[PV1973]

Good team selection, I had my doubts but the likes of Joyce, Conlon, and Hannant all shone as did Clark who surprisingly replaced Gibbons.

A better result for us than for County and had the ref put on a black and white striped shirt at the end I wouldn`t have been surprised.

I thought Conlon and Joyce did well, I don't get the criticism they are receiving, I thought they controlled the midfield for large parts of the game. Maybe some are blinkered by their past performances?

 

Its a pity Gibbons apparently had a niggle from training in the week, but Clark was steady without being as dynamic down the wing, I thought yesterday Crooks provided more threat, especially in the second half.

[Alright Nah]

I don't think we'll even need 42 points to stay up to be honest. We're in effect 5 points ahead of Macclesfield with the goal difference. It goes without saying we must beat Yeovil.

 

I had that points total in my head too. I thought the performance was good yesterday, have to say that. That's taking into account we are a poor side. You're not 3rd bottom at this stage for nothing. I don't expect a surge up the table that's for certain fact.

 

Only thing missing was a goal but that's obviously a huge problem. Pope carries a ton of pressure so I think it is harsh to berate him too much, although he's not beyond criticism. There are not many strikers who score every chance they get at this level. And up until yesterday he was going into every game knowing if one chance came his way it had to go in as we wouldn't create another. He had 3 half decent chances yesterday. Id expect him to score the first one at the start of the second half. He is forced to play too many games I think and that doesn't help him or us. At his age, he shouldnt be getting rushed back. But these are the times we're in.

 

If we can manage to get a couple of goals from somewhere and beat yeovil and macc and scrape a couple of draws we'll stumble over the line.

 

Then what? God knows.

[pete vale]

I have to ask the question.... did WE play better or did we just seem to play better because they were worse than us?

Would we have played better if we were playing a mid or top table team... would we have kept a clean sheet....

Not scoring against the bottom team with a -32 goal difference is pretty depressing..... and "at least we didn't lose" doesn't change the mood much.

 

Remains to be seen GEO. What I will say is that yesterday the midfield closed down quicker, we didn't sit back with the usual 9 or 10 behind the ball. There was more movement and fluidity in the passing and we looked solid. I think if we maintain that against better teams we'll be OK. However let's not kid ourselves, we should have won this but didn't. We desperately need support for Pope and for Tom to start finding the net. Defensively yesterday we were sound. Good performance whatever the opposition but we have to maintain it and hope we Score!!

[vale on toower]

[Rampant Zebra]

Although some people on here think Ben Whitfield should have started yesterday, bear in mind that he has never scored an away goal for us in one and a half seasons.

[Alright Nah]

Remains to be seen GEO. What I will say is that yesterday the midfield closed down quicker, we didn't sit back with the usual 9 or 10 behind the ball. There was more movement and fluidity in the passing and we looked solid. I think if we maintain that against better teams we'll be OK. However let's not kid ourselves, we should have won this but didn't. We desperately need support for Pope and for Tom to start finding the net. Defensively yesterday we were sound. Good performance whatever the opposition but we have to maintain it and hope we Score!!

 

Totally summed it up

[onestepatatime]

In the cold light of day, emotions and knee jerks reactions aside, even though I enjoyed the day yesterday we actually threw away 2 vital points to one of the poorest Teams I've seen in over 40 years of watching the Vale. They were dire and offered no threat whatsoever.

 

Our squad played much better than in previous games and should have won handsomely, if only we remembered where the bleeding net was!

 

Listened to Notts radio on way home and several County forum posts and ALL admit they got away with it.

 

This god awful season can't come to an end quick enough for me and I still hope, pray and somewhat niaiavely believe we will survive.

 

The club needs all of us now to continue that fantastic support from yesterday, to see the lads home and safe.

[soothsayer]

So I’m not a true supporter because I’m not over the moon that we looked ok against county? ******* numpty.

 

You're the numpty - everyone is sick to death of your bull**** comments. Try getting behind the team for once.

We all know we are poor but the club will go down without support, it just may stay up with it.