Our Recruitment Team

[mr.hobblesworth]

8 minutes ago, 1 said:

The team is fine but for a few strikers missing that have imminent return dates. 2/3 of these players won’t be here in the summer and but for maybe 3 performances we’ve been really solid. There’s no need to go into mad mode after a dire performance with a hampered team selection. Accy won’t have a shot at goal so 0-0 will be a base to build from.

"Imminent return dates" is an interesting phrase. I'm pretty sure Clarke said Harrison and Wilson were due back in 2 or 3 weeks (I stand to be corrected) after the defeat to Peterborough. That was nearly 3 weeks ago and after tonight's game he said that Wilson has only just started running and Harrison has only now managed to fit his boots on. 

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The team is fine but for a few strikers missing

No, it's not. We weren't professionally prepared for the fist of the season and even now we are a decent GK, LWB, CB and CM short, and that's without mentioning our forwards.

There have been several costly and totally avoidable mistakes this season and I know, IMO, where the finger of blame should be pointing.

[leedsvaliant]

Unfortunately, this season's summer business hasn't been as good as last seasons. Although it was always going to be a tough act to follow in a higher division.

What annoyed me slightly is that we essentially wrote off August, playing a youth team midfielder up front. Whichever way you look at it, and even with the limited time between seasons, that's a huge failure. We knew we were in the mix for promotion from about January onwards, so the groundwork for league 1 players should have been in place months before it was needed. We also didn't have many surprises about who was leaving, apart from Gibbons.

I don't think that just because we have had a successful season that the main protagonists should be immune from criticism. As the management team say regularly, we should never stand still and should be pushing forward every day.

[Caroline Oakes]

Fundamentally Carol was told to cut costs in January as we couldn't afford current expenditure. 
We could have Brighton's recruitment team but they'd have struggled in the same situation.

What will Flickers’ job be until we can next recruit … in the summer 🤷‍♀️ I can’t imagine we pay him peanuts 🤷‍♀️

[Loggerheads Sage]

3 hours ago, Sandyford_Lion said:

Shame about Taylor today but lets wind the clock back to Jan 31st.

D.C. says " we have the chance of taking Matt Taylor on loan but he will miss the first couple of games. Should we take him "

100% YES from almost everyone i would bet

Assuming that Taylor was injured on 31st January ( and not injured in training this week), I think it would have played better with supporters to state this. Massive disappointment today. Spose the argument will be, don't let the opposition know beforehand,  but clearly it made no difference. 

Last season when we had no strikers, we played  Ben G up top, who got goals. Surprised that we haven't done so again.  I know Massey has played up top, but on his own? I think it's pretty obvious that he isn't the answer there. 

Only my opinion of course,  and clearly DC knows far more than men

[Packmoor_vale]

7 hours ago, Caroline Oakes said:

What will Flickers’ job be until we can next recruit … in the summer 🤷‍♀️ I can’t imagine we pay him peanuts 🤷‍♀️

Why do u always seem to pop up when there is a bit of finger pointing to be done 

[philpvfc]

11 hours ago, 1 said:

Exactly, can’t say January was terrible on 4th February. Next people will be saying Walker would have set Charsley up for at least 4 or 5 today, though in reality neither would have seen a minute of play.

True, but Hall would have been playing instead of Donnelly which would have meant they most likely would not have had the first goal, Forrester most likely would not have come on and given away the penalty and we will have had some more height in the opponents box for some of the corners and free kicks which never found one of our players.

Edit, just seen the goals again as missed the 3rd yesterday, Hall would not have made it so easy for their forward to have scored the last goal, very weak by Donnelly.

[Sandyford_Lion]

9 hours ago, Loggerheads Sage said:

Assuming that Taylor was injured on 31st January ( and not injured in training this week), I think it would have played better with supporters to state this. Massive disappointment today. Spose the argument will be, don't let the opposition know beforehand,  but clearly it made no difference. 

Last season when we had no strikers, we played  Ben G up top, who got goals. Surprised that we haven't done so again.  I know Massey has played up top, but on his own? I think it's pretty obvious that he isn't the answer there. 

Only my opinion of course,  and clearly DC knows far more than men

Supporters were saying he came off at half time. Pretty sure that Wycombe would be able to find out any extent of an injury once they knew he was in our squad. People have friends everywhere.

[NellyTheValiant]

3 hours ago, philpvfc said:

True, but Hall would have been playing instead of Donnelly which would have meant they most likely would not have had the first goal, Forrester most likely would not have come on and given away the penalty and we will have had some more height in the opponents box for some of the corners and free kicks which never found one of our players.

Edit, just seen the goals again as missed the 3rd yesterday, Hall would not have made it so easy for their forward to have scored the last goal, very weak by Donnelly.

Forrester wasn't at fault for the penalty was he?  Robinson lost the ball initially and it hit the arm/hand of Donnelly from the header.

Had Hall been in the same position as Donnelly found himself in for the 1st goal, I'm not sure that he would've recovered either.  The only think I would say is the Donnelly should've clipped his heels to stop his run.

[philpvfc]

13 minutes ago, NellyTheValiant said:

Forrester wasn't at fault for the penalty was he?  Robinson lost the ball initially and it hit the arm/hand of Donnelly from the header.

Had Hall been in the same position as Donnelly found himself in for the 1st goal, I'm not sure that he would've recovered either.  The only think I would say is the Donnelly should've clipped his heels to stop his run.

Thought it was Forrester who handled. That makes it worse if it was Donnelly, he had an absolute mare. Don’t think Hall would have got back either but I’d like to think he wouldn’t have been well out of position in the first place.

[PV1973]

It’s irrelevant what Hall could or would have done. We can’t say for sure. Donnelly was being praised to high heaven last week, this week shocking. There’s no middle ground is there. Someone asked for him to play LWB on Tuesday. Is he is even a LWB? I thought he was a left sided centre half. 

[LancyTony]

On 04/02/2023 at 20:35, philpvfc said:

Which of those mentioned are perfectly good signings?

Open your lamps: "...Ainsworth, Guppy and even Tony Naylor"!!!!!

[LancyTony]

On 04/02/2023 at 20:30, melv said:

I’m asking is it a panic signing?

It's the proven goalscorer many were whinging about NOT signing! Out of interest - when did he suffer the injury?

[LancyTony]

On 04/02/2023 at 21:05, Sandyford_Lion said:

Well said. Our signings have in the main been poor.

There are too many on here that just believe because Vale have said / done it, its great.

Wish they would view with their own eyes and then honestly comment on what they see. We all love the Vale but they do mistakes

It's a shame that, when we hit a bad patch, this load of <ovf censored> starts to become more prevalent on here...along with people suddenly becoming medical experts, football accountants, groundsmen, armchair managers and - presumably - the person Carol takes orders from to cut the budget. Then, when we start to pick up again, this crap disappears for a while, until the next bad patch - much of this is a repeat of what was posted when we lost the first 3 of our last 4 games, last season. 

Are you really saying you think our signings have been less than 50% good ones? (and, you know the rest of this sentence, don't you?) Having got us promotion - against massive odds - and taken us to mid-table in the next League? 

[LancyTony]

On 05/02/2023 at 00:01, leedsvaliant said:

...We knew we were in the mix for promotion from about January onwards, so the groundwork for league 1 players should have been in place months before it was needed.

...We also didn't have many surprises about who was leaving, apart from Gibbons..


 

Not sure you can convince even the thickest Lge 1 player to wait before signing anywhere else, just in case Port Vale get promotion to League 2...which we nearly didn't? You would think they would want to get their futures settled early on?

Also  - had we not got promotion we might not have needed to release as many players, or bring in a load of more costly Lge 1 players to play in Lge 2?

[LancyTony]

On 05/02/2023 at 00:01, leedsvaliant said:

...I don't think that just because we have had a successful season that the main protagonists should be immune from criticism...
 

You think we should become failures to escape criticism? Or not have goit promotion? Because I'm guessing the vast majority wouldn't criticise our backroom staff and management for getting promotion? Although, we know there are some...