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RayWalkers40yarder

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The next test in the summer is to gauge whether recruitment has improved, and we can sign genuinely proven League 2 operators as well as some undervalued players which our scouting system unearths.

Last summer was clearly Askey going through his phone contacts for lads of good character who would come in, fill out the squad, do their job, not moan, cost next to nothing, and be fit. This can be excused considering the challenges we faced in the summer. The squad is infinitely more professional than last season and we appear to have dropped onto a decent player in Burgess.

This summer has to be infinitely more slick, proactive, and professional. No fan questions that. The budget is there and the club is 100x more attractive.

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I spoke to Rudgie before the season started.  He said it would take a while to turn things round and fans shouldn't expect miracles.  You can't turn a relegation team into a promotion team in one season with limited cash.  He knows a thing or two about football.

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4 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

I spoke to Rudgie before the season started.  He said it would take a while to turn things round and fans shouldn't expect miracles.  You can't turn a relegation team into a promotion team in one season with limited cash.  He knows a thing or two about football.

In my view, transforming a side from 20th to 10th with only 2/3 new players in the starting 11 is a very good job, alonsgide an overhaul of discipline which has seen a partying culture disappear almost overnight.

Askey clearly didn't have a semblance of a recruitment department/strategy last summer. He didn't know if the club he was employed by would still exist come June. He didn't know if he'd get a new contract. He didn't know if his employer would be Big Norm, The Mythical Hong Kong Consortium, Carol or Kevin, or the Job Centre.

When he found himself in the job, he had to cobble togther a competitive squad on a reduced budget using his contacts as his employers scrambled to sort out a playing kit, a stadium safe for public use, and stop the club haemorraghing money as it had done for 7 years leading it to near administration if the owner pulled the plug.

You can maybe forgive them for not splashing the cash on a flashing lights recruitment department.

I will be the first to criticise this summer if recrutiment continues to be as shoddy, but context for last summer is crucial. This summer has to, and probably will, be a lot better.

 

 

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What on earth are the current operators supposed to do about the previous 4 seasons? You can't use the failures of the previous incumbents as a stick to beat this, so far successful, transitional period.
I don't like the Sproson link, and I don't like the recruitment policy thus far; both valid criticisms which the club needs to address and overhaul.
I take issue with your lambasting/impatience/boredom of the current transition period, which is 8 months deep and sees us 10 places higher, with a sustainable club and improved coffers, with long-term commercial strategy and stability (first season a manager will see through in 4 years), much improved home form which has nudged home attendances over 5,000 in the last month, improved links with local sponsors and law enforcement, hosting one of the planet's biggest pop stars in an excellent move of exposure and commercial viability, breaking the away attendance record of the Treble holders, and a club in which I enjoy attending matches and have genuine hopes moving forward.
Criticise recruitment all you want. I'll be there with you.
 


The fact that the club failed to attract any of the 4000 day-trippers who attended MC back to VP, shows that the bread and butter product on and off the pitch is still sadly lacking.

Nobody is criticising the owners, I’m just concerned that this constant annual cycle of disappointment onfield will start to have a detrimental affect on the fan base. Yes things may be getting better behind the scenes but ultimately fans are only interested in their match day experience.
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John Rudge arrived, couldn't stop us being relegated, and then finished 12th.

Micky Adams arrived, and took us from a side who finished 18th to a side who finished 10th.

Our two best managers of the last 4 decades couldn't oversee a single-season transformation.

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2 minutes ago, Vital Spark said:

 

Totally agree Jean, but surely the hard work undertaken by Carol must by now have put us in a position to be confident enough to start the onfield renaissance. I like most fans just can’t see any signs of this happening.

Because you have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.  You have no idea how many players we have tried to sign/get on loan only to have ridiculous wage demands and loan fees quoted to us.  Do you want the Shanahans to put the future of the club at risk or do you want to build patiently?  If our previous owner hadn't demanded a ludicrous fee to buy the club and if he had been honest about how much his directors' loan was, we would have more cash to invest but we haven't because he robbed the club and the Shanahans blind.  If they had any business sense they would have walked away and let us collapse into liquidation.  But they put their money where they mouths were and rescued us.   They gave our previous owner more than three times what he had paid for the club when it was in a better state with no debt.  To criticise them now for not chucking more money at the club when they have already chucked more than you or I could dream of is, in my opinion, totally ignoring what they have already done for us.

It's thanks to the Shanahans that we still have a club.  We should not forget that.

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7 minutes ago, Vital Spark said:

 


The fact that the club failed to attract any of the 4000 day-trippers who attended MC back to VP, shows that the bread and butter product on and off the pitch is still sadly lacking.

Nobody is criticising the owners, I’m just concerned that this constant annual cycle of disappointment onfield will start to have a detrimental affect on the fan base. Yes things may be getting better behind the scenes but ultimately fans are only interested in their match day experience.

Getting many of the 4000 people who paid £10 for a ticket in one of the world's best stadiums to watch some of the best footballers on the planet, to come to Burslem and pay £23 to watch League 2 football was never going to happen.

Attendances have regularly hit 5,000 in the last month at Vale Park. That's progress. The past decade has seen us lose the entire young population of Stoke on Trent to our incinerator neighbours.

Our highest average attendance of the last few years was only 6,249; a season which finished 9th in League 1 and saw Wolves nearly sell out the ground.

To hit 5,000 in 4 of our last 5 home games after the decade we've had, in the smallest city with two FL clubs, is reasonable going.

 

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5 minutes ago, Vital Spark said:

 


The fact that the club failed to attract any of the 4000 day-trippers who attended MC back to VP, shows that the bread and butter product on and off the pitch is still sadly lacking.
 

The club did a special offer for the first home game after the City outing and put season tickets on sale almost immediately.  Did you want them to send blokes with whips down to Burslem to drive the folk to Vale Park?

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The club did a special offer for the first home game after the City outing and put season tickets on sale almost immediately.  Did you want them to send blokes with whips down to Burslem to drive the folk to Vale Park?

 

Ridiculous comment.

 

The fact that these offers had little effect, suggests my comment had some substance.

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I understand some of the frustrations.  There’s been the uplift from the new ownership, performances have improved on the pitch, to the point where we’re within touching distance of the play offs in what fans can see is a fairly mediocre league this season.  We now have the January window, with the possibility of signing a couple of players to push us on. Factor in that we are a perceived “big club” in this division, also that the Shunters are flirting with the automatic places.
 

Add these factors together and it’s quite easy to forget where we were, only a few months ago, and to dream that we just need a wonder signing or two to have us charging into the play offs.

 It’s not quite that straightforward unfortunately.

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