January Transfers and Rumours

[MBE]

31 minutes ago, Danish Valiant said:

Was just about to write the same thing. Maybe not 14, but I would guess about 8-10. 

As I wrote in the summer, most of the current squad was signed to fulfill the task of getting us out of L2 in 2 years, hence why they were almost all given 2 year contracts. But as the promotion came a year early, we had a squad assembled to get us out of L2, now having to perform in L1. That gave the club very very little wiggle room in the summer, late promotion or not, as we had to get players out, before we could get players in. And with only Amoo released, we didn't really have loads and loads of room in the squad to bring new, better, faces in.

Now we once again stand in a situation, were almost 2/3 of the squad is out of contract. And I think just a handful of those out of contract, will be offered new deals. And wether the club want to or not, we will eventually have to take a serious look at the wage structure. I'm not saying we should not stay sustainable in any way, shape or form. But paying low wages will eventually take you back down to L2. I know we can't, nor should we right now, compete with the Ipswich or Sheff Weds of the league. But I would really really hate to see us come in a situation, where we end up like the Accrington, Burton or Morecambe end, being more than ecstatic just surviving in L1. The club speak again and again about one day aspiring to be in the Championship. And that will include the need for a slow, but steady increase of the playing budget. That won't come in a year or two, but it has to be done. I'll dare to say, that if a club isn't in development, it's under settlement.  

You never know the true contract situation because we are even secretive about that these days. 

It will be a big turnaround just because of the number of loan players making up the squad which I don’t think is sustainable. I hope as part of our development we can address this in the summer. 

Big decisions to be made for sure at WB and ST positions in the summer.

[Smallthorne clampet]

30 minutes ago, Danish Valiant said:

Was just about to write the same thing. Maybe not 14, but I would guess about 8-10. 

As I wrote in the summer, most of the current squad was signed to fulfill the task of getting us out of L2 in 2 years, hence why they were almost all given 2 year contracts. But as the promotion came a year early, we had a squad assembled to get us out of L2, now having to perform in L1. That gave the club very very little wiggle room in the summer, late promotion or not, as we had to get players out, before we could get players in. And with only Amoo released, we didn't really have loads and loads of room in the squad to bring new, better, faces in.

Now we once again stand in a situation, were almost 2/3 of the squad is out of contract. And I think just a handful of those out of contract, will be offered new deals. And wether the club want to or not, we will eventually have to take a serious look at the wage structure. I'm not saying we should not stay sustainable in any way, shape or form. But paying low wages will eventually take you back down to L2. I know we can't, nor should we right now, compete with the Ipswich or Sheff Weds of the league. But I would really really hate to see us come in a situation, where we end up like the Accrington, Burton or Morecambe end, being more than ecstatic just surviving in L1. The club speak again and again about one day aspiring to be in the Championship. And that will include the need for a slow, but steady increase of the playing budget. That won't come in a year or two, but it has to be done. I'll dare to say, that if a club isn't in development, it's under settlement.  

Spot on , been thnking of where we go from here , assuming we finish in mid table this season , which I would suggest is where you would bench mark the club , based on my time supporting the club , which is 60 years . For 50 of those 60 years we have flirted between the bottom two divisions . So what happens now ? The 10 years in the second tier were the best in the clubs history , to repeat that we have to be bold and do what Billy Bell did and take a calculated risk , and sign players who can get us promoted . That will cost a lot of expenditure , but it is the only way to compete with the big boys in this league . He who dares wins - or goes bust , the owners have done great to get us this far , the big question is which way will we go ?   

[Emile]

I'm not working currently as I have a newborn and shes asleep - so to cure some boredom I made a little spreadsheet

Port Vale transfer analysis - Google Sheets

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM

This shows all transfers in and out since DC/DF came into the club. A couple of points to be considered;
- some transfers are not like for like. I used wikipedia for the player positions and matched them as closely as I could
- I tried to follow logic by matching our best player in a position with another. For example Tom Pope / James Wilson - despite Popey being more similar to Jamie Proctor.

- I included Covolan as leaving the club in January as we signed a replacement for him, but he didn't actually leave until this summer. So technically Holy wasn't replaced by Stevens but for the purpose of this document I think it makes sense to do it this way.

What I concluded by looking at this;

- Last season we reduced the size of the squad by 3, and then increased it by 5 by the end of the summer 22 window. Then in January we lost 2 players without replacements, bringing the squad to the exact same size as when DC/DF took over

- This means 38 players signed (loan or perm) and 38 players sold/released in 4 windows / 2 seasons.

- In my opinion only 4 transfers have not improved the squad. Gibbons, Scott Brown and the two random left backs signed and then didn't play this summer. There are 8 other transfers which aren't totally positive, but I do think at least matched the player that left

- I believe this shows the club are doing a fantastic job at recruitment and clearly working hard to churn 38 players in 2 years.

Hope people will take some time and add their own feedback

 

Danke! 

[1]

That says it all really, and even if some swaps may not have improved us like for like, those swapped players will themselves be replaced soon enough.

[1]

10 minutes ago, Emile said:

I'm not working currently as I have a newborn and shes asleep - so to cure some boredom I made a little spreadsheet

Port Vale transfer analysis - Google Sheets

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM

This shows all transfers in and out since DC/DF came into the club. A couple of points to be considered;
- some transfers are not like for like. I used wikipedia for the player positions and matched them as closely as I could
- I tried to follow logic by matching our best player in a position with another. For example Tom Pope / James Wilson - despite Popey being more similar to Jamie Proctor.

- I included Covolan as leaving the club in January as we signed a replacement for him, but he didn't actually leave until this summer. So technically Holy wasn't replaced by Stevens but for the purpose of this document I think it makes sense to do it this way.

What I concluded by looking at this;

- Last season we reduced the size of the squad by 3, and then increased it by 5 by the end of the summer 22 window. Then in January we lost 2 players without replacements, bringing the squad to the exact same size as when DC/DF took over

- This means 38 players signed (loan or perm) and 38 players sold/released in 4 windows / 2 seasons.

- In my opinion only 4 transfers have not improved the squad. Gibbons, Scott Brown and the two random left backs signed and then didn't play this summer. There are 8 other transfers which aren't totally positive, but I do think at least matched the player that left

- I believe this shows the club are doing a fantastic job at recruitment and clearly working hard to churn 38 players in 2 years.

Hope people will take some time and add their own feedback

 

Danke! 

Also for example Amoo being replaced by Massey - both ok but one was L2 and the other L1. Put Massey in L2 and he’d have a field day so the upgrade would be stark.

[Smallthorne clampet]

16 minutes ago, Emile said:

I'm not working currently as I have a newborn and shes asleep - so to cure some boredom I made a little spreadsheet

Port Vale transfer analysis - Google Sheets

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM

This shows all transfers in and out since DC/DF came into the club. A couple of points to be considered;
- some transfers are not like for like. I used wikipedia for the player positions and matched them as closely as I could
- I tried to follow logic by matching our best player in a position with another. For example Tom Pope / James Wilson - despite Popey being more similar to Jamie Proctor.

- I included Covolan as leaving the club in January as we signed a replacement for him, but he didn't actually leave until this summer. So technically Holy wasn't replaced by Stevens but for the purpose of this document I think it makes sense to do it this way.

What I concluded by looking at this;

- Last season we reduced the size of the squad by 3, and then increased it by 5 by the end of the summer 22 window. Then in January we lost 2 players without replacements, bringing the squad to the exact same size as when DC/DF took over

- This means 38 players signed (loan or perm) and 38 players sold/released in 4 windows / 2 seasons.

- In my opinion only 4 transfers have not improved the squad. Gibbons, Scott Brown and the two random left backs signed and then didn't play this summer. There are 8 other transfers which aren't totally positive, but I do think at least matched the player that left

- I believe this shows the club are doing a fantastic job at recruitment and clearly working hard to churn 38 players in 2 years.

Hope people will take some time and add their own feedback

 

Danke! 

They might be doing a fantastic job at recruitment , but we need hard cash to get us to the championship . 

[Fosse69]

They might be doing a fantastic job at recruitment , but we need hard cash to get us to the championship . 

Ground changes in the pipeline to improve the cash flow. Players need to be developed for our use and to be sold on to improve the cash flow. Attendances also help. Cup runs help. Smart management improves the effectiveness of the players we can afford. Should anyone else wish to pour more money into the club it would help.

[philmpv]

I'm not working currently as I have a newborn and shes asleep - so to cure some boredom I made a little spreadsheet

Port Vale transfer analysis - Google Sheets

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM This shows all transfers in and out since DC/DF came into the club. A couple of points to be considered;
- some transfers are not like for like. I used wikipedia for the player positions and matched them as closely as I could
- I tried to follow logic by matching our best player in a position with another. For example Tom Pope / James Wilson - despite Popey being more similar to Jamie Proctor.
- I included Covolan as leaving the club in January as we signed a replacement for him, but he didn't actually leave until this summer. So technically Holy wasn't replaced by Stevens but for the purpose of this document I think it makes sense to do it this way.

What I concluded by looking at this;

- Last season we reduced the size of the squad by 3, and then increased it by 5 by the end of the summer 22 window. Then in January we lost 2 players without replacements, bringing the squad to the exact same size as when DC/DF took over
- This means 38 players signed (loan or perm) and 38 players sold/released in 4 windows / 2 seasons.
- In my opinion only 4 transfers have not improved the squad. Gibbons, Scott Brown and the two random left backs signed and then didn't play this summer. There are 8 other transfers which aren't totally positive, but I do think at least matched the player that left
- I believe this shows the club are doing a fantastic job at recruitment and clearly working hard to churn 38 players in 2 years.

Hope people will take some time and add their own feedback
 
Danke! 

What an excellent and fair analysis. Thanks for taking the time to gather all of that information into one place. Shows just how well we've recruited overall. Would be very interesting to do the same for the 4 years before DC and co!

[CambridgeDon]

2 hours ago, werstayinup said:

I think we will have exactly the same this summer a mass cull and recruitment drive

I agree with that - but I hope we are more sure of our ability to sign their replacements than we were in the last pre-season. I know we had very little time after coming up through the playoffs but it seemed to me that several of our targets were lost because they had better offers than we could make them or went to bigger clubs. If the same were to happen again, we could be in a very difficult situation in putting together a competitive squad after releasing a fair number.

That's why I also think Danish Valiant is right when he talks of the need to revamp our wages structure. Attracting a squad of players capable of mounting a serious challenge for promotion to the championship is a much different proposition than achieving the same to get out of League 2. It will take a lot more money to achieve and this has to be balanced against our income because we don't want to end up like Bury or Bolton or any of the other clubs who've overstretched themselves. 

It's a big challenge. The best thing is that we have sensible owners who are building slowly and surely to achieve their long-term goals, including a successful throughput of young players. Exciting times to be a Vale fan - my guess is it will be a bit of a roller coaster ride but so far, so good.

[blackdog]

58 minutes ago, Smallthorne clampet said:

Spot on , been thnking of where we go from here , assuming we finish in mid table this season , which I would suggest is where you would bench mark the club , based on my time supporting the club , which is 60 years . For 50 of those 60 years we have flirted between the bottom two divisions . So what happens now ? The 10 years in the second tier were the best in the clubs history , to repeat that we have to be bold and do what Billy Bell did and take a calculated risk , and sign players who can get us promoted . That will cost a lot of expenditure , but it is the only way to compete with the big boys in this league . He who dares wins - or goes bust , the owners have done great to get us this far , the big question is which way will we go ?   

Bell had the advantage of selling players to reinvest eg. Andy Jones, Guppy etc....I doubt he funded it himself.

We are slowly improving and investing in the development squad players such as Mc Dermott and Plant hopefully they can be sold on, so we can reinvest.

A good cup draw could set us on the road but it's a gamble getting one of those.

I don't think it's fair to expect the Shanahans to plough money in ad nauseam, obviously the more self funding we can be, the better, but the bottom line is we must live within our means and it won't happen overnight  the problem with that is, football supporters are notoriously short of patience.

 

[LancyTony]

14 hours ago, SFBT said:

A 32 year old proven striker on a 6 month loan is the ideal solution for the current situation at Vale.
A finisher. Much needed.

He could also be a freebie in the Summer if we have to replace any of our current ctrikers? Would certainly do us for another season, I think?

 

[LancyTony]

12 hours ago, jjvale_03 said:

Matrix = Darrell calling out of favour players he's previously worked with.

Or, just maybe the Matrix identify them as being available first ansd ask DC for his thoughts?

[Smallthorne clampet]

13 minutes ago, blackdog said:

Bell had the advantage of selling players to reinvest eg. Andy Jones, Guppy etc....I doubt he funded it himself.

We are slowly improving and investing in the development squad players such as Mc Dermott and Plant hopefully they can be sold on, so we can reinvest.

A good cup draw could set us on the road but it's a gamble getting one of those.

I don't think it's fair to expect the Shanahans to plough money in ad nauseam, obviously the more self funding we can be, the better, but the bottom line is we must live within our means and it won't happen overnight  the problem with that is, football supporters are notoriously short of patience.

 

I am not asking the owners to pump money in willy nilly , I am just asking the question .

[blackdog]

4 minutes ago, Smallthorne clampet said:

I am not asking the owners to pump money in willy nilly , I am just asking the question .

I know you are...........

[Walka003]

I'm not working currently as I have a newborn and shes asleep - so to cure some boredom I made a little spreadsheet

Port Vale transfer analysis - Google Sheets

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM This shows all transfers in and out since DC/DF came into the club. A couple of points to be considered;
- some transfers are not like for like. I used wikipedia for the player positions and matched them as closely as I could
- I tried to follow logic by matching our best player in a position with another. For example Tom Pope / James Wilson - despite Popey being more similar to Jamie Proctor.
- I included Covolan as leaving the club in January as we signed a replacement for him, but he didn't actually leave until this summer. So technically Holy wasn't replaced by Stevens but for the purpose of this document I think it makes sense to do it this way.

What I concluded by looking at this;

- Last season we reduced the size of the squad by 3, and then increased it by 5 by the end of the summer 22 window. Then in January we lost 2 players without replacements, bringing the squad to the exact same size as when DC/DF took over
- This means 38 players signed (loan or perm) and 38 players sold/released in 4 windows / 2 seasons.
- In my opinion only 4 transfers have not improved the squad. Gibbons, Scott Brown and the two random left backs signed and then didn't play this summer. There are 8 other transfers which aren't totally positive, but I do think at least matched the player that left
- I believe this shows the club are doing a fantastic job at recruitment and clearly working hard to churn 38 players in 2 years.

Hope people will take some time and add their own feedback
 
Danke! 

This is a good piece of work, kudos. There's a couple of yellows and greens that I would be turning red, particularly from this summer (Holden, Derek, Massey, politic and Mipo spring to mind straight away).

When you look back, we really had some sh!te legacy players left over from the askey days.