Match Thread: Accrington Stanley v Port Vale

[JoeB2]

Bring Covolan home. He will steady the ship!

 

[PV1973]

1 hour ago, Rampant Zebra said:

Smith, Worrall and Conlon were port vale players before Clarke, and Tom Pett is big mates with Tom Conlon.  The rest are just journeymen. We are where we are.

Football by its nature is in the main a “journeyman” career, you’d be mad to think it’s anything other. The club have no loyalty to players and vice versa. 

[Hoppers]

17 minutes ago, sinnott2spinnit said:

The liner must have been Russian 😃

Havent the refs got that buzzer thingy-mag-jiggy stuck up their bum that goes off if the ball crosses the line??????

Bet he went home sore yesterday🙈🙈🙈

[Howjy04]

Pre New Year I think most people would have been  happy where we were and having most of last season’s team.Some players have been found wanting since then but which players would people have discarded at the start of the season having just got the club promoted?Has DC been too loyal?Hindsight is a wonderful thing.Should the 1million spent on facilities been earmarked for next season and instead used on the squad for this season?Rumours abound.Who was present at DC’s Pompey interview?Who are the players that have been told they’re off at the end of the season?Answers on a postage stamp please.

[Hoppers]

2 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Bring Covolan home. He will steady the ship!

ahhh you are talking my language - the beautiful purple prince returns - its like a plot strand from the Game of Thrones

going root out me purple I LUV LUCAS jim jams in anticipation

the psychopath  🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Brian]

Slept on it now, but I’m still angry about two things in particular.

Ojo yesterday gave one of the most uninterested performances I’ve ever seen from a Port Vale player.

Too late to the ball, not interested in helping his midfield partner, gave away a penalty with the laziest ‘challenge’ you will ever see, and then contrived to get himself sent off in the most ludicrous show of childish petulance.

Clearly has no interest or involvement in Port Vale.

Team selection. We set out from the start to play long ball, and had Harrison and Procter on the bench. Neither Taylor nor Wilson can do much with a long ball. That has to be down to the manager, assuming he picks the team.

I will still be there on Monday, and already have my Lincoln tickets. All I want is to see 11 players who are up for the challenge, and show some pride in the shirt. If I see that, even if we lose, I can accept that.

 

 

[Hoppers]

2 minutes ago, Brian said:

Team selection. We set out from the start to play long ball, and had Harrison and Procter on the bench. Neither Taylor nor Wilson can do much with a long ball. That has to be down to the manager, assuming he picks the team.

THIS - with the team selection, I was thinking yes, playing in the land of the giants, at last we are going back to playing football on the ground on a decent pitch - ddddduuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh wrong Hoppers, wrong 🙈🙈🙈🙈

[Santa]

2 hours ago, smithie said:

I know it's irrelevant now but is there a freeze frame for the first goal?

 

[Playa Amodores]

14 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Bring Covolan home. He will steady the ship!

 

Joe, like the video. However I feel Cov has a bigger axe to grind with our current management team than anyone else. Operation Sabotage

[Vale Ball]

See Pope has crawled out the pub to have a dig

Sent from my SM-A217F using onevalefan mobile app

[Bycarsbill]

17 minutes ago, Brian said:

Slept on it now, but I’m still angry about two things in particular.

Ojo yesterday gave one of the most uninterested performances I’ve ever seen from a Port Vale player.

Too late to the ball, not interested in helping his midfield partner, gave away a penalty with the laziest ‘challenge’ you will ever see, and then contrived to get himself sent off in the most ludicrous show of childish petulance.

Clearly has no interest or involvement in Port Vale.

Team selection. We set out from the start to play long ball, and had Harrison and Procter on the bench. Neither Taylor nor Wilson can do much with a long ball. That has to be down to the manager, assuming he picks the team.

I will still be there on Monday, and already have my Lincoln tickets. All I want is to see 11 players who are up for the challenge, and show some pride in the shirt. If I see that, even if we lose, I can accept that.

 

 

That's an absolutely constructive and objective assessment and many of us feel the same way. But thank you for putting it so succinctly!

[Biddulph_PV]

Well that was a rather depressing result and the top-hat on a rather chastening 3 months where all our chickens have come home to roost. As GNev said in the aftermath of Utd’s mauling at Anfield, Accrington “is always a dangerous fixture” for us, going back to the days of Jimmy Ryan and Bobby Grant running us ragged, the whole Gannon/Exodus thing etc, but there is literally no leadership in the team. Possible exception is Smith, more by deeds rather than words, but the first rule is to make sure players are up for the fight and win - by whatever means - their individual battles. Say what you want about Coleman as an individual, but his teams match his personality - spikey, horrible to play against and really bad losers (in the right sort of way). We don’t have any of this and haven’t for a number of years.

I was widely derided on here last year for saying weren’t a great side and wouldn’t get promoted. We had a decent run eeking out results against poor sides, but came unstuck whether we came up against that bit of guile or craft - think Newport at home, Walsall away and Swindon away. In the latter, a host of missed home chances and a scrambled Wilson goal made the first leg closer than it ought to have been. But then in the home leg we played a team for the first time which, incredibly, was significantly greater than the sum of the individual parts. As evidenced by the demolition job at Wembley against a side I had thought were better than us in both League games. For the first time in a while, we looked strong, technical and quick.

Two transfer windows later and we’re back to watching the same rubbish that has been prevalent across the last 5-6 years. Poor inexperienced goalies incapable of dominating a six yard box; lack of physical presence or pace at the back (our ‘best’ centre back is short, has no pace and has shocking ability on the ball); no craft or guile in midfield and total absence of ball carriers, and upfront missing - dare I say it - a Pope-style talisman ideally with a reasonable level of fitness (I’m not even going there).

We are so tactically rigid it beggars belief. The only ‘identity’ we have is that we play 5-3-2 regardless of personnel and, worryingly, results. When we actually came out and said we are choosing to work with a smaller, supposedly-better quality squad, and then to leave ourselves so hopelessly exposed in key positions and completely unable to change formation, is at best poor management, at worst akin to industrial espionage (I wonder who Stevens and Taylor will be rooting for on Monday and what ‘chitter chatter’ taking place between now and then between them and other Oxford players????).

The fact of the matter is I have enough fingers on both hands (and as I’m from Biddulph rather than Leek or Congie that’s the standard 5 on each 🤣) to count the games I’ve truly enjoyed under Clark. Fortunately, one of these was the Wembley masterclass. 

Can’t criticise Carol. I know I’ve been guilty about some jokey comments about stand switches and scoreboards, but these whilst aesthetic are a necessity. Vale Park is a liability rather than an asset. A new stadium is an absolute must, but won’t happen in my lifetime. Yes people attend to watch good, winning football it’s also the camaraderie and putting going to the match a habit and good experience. The quality of football is cyclical, the passion of true-fans isn’t.

That said, the shambles around the reservation of seats in the Hamil for Bycars S/Ts has cost the club at least two renewals this year.

The fight has gone this year and I fully expect us to go down on the last day whilst watching 4,500 delirious pasty-munchers celebrating promotion. Then begins the rebuild 2.0.

[bomber]

The goalkeeping situation has been poor for the last two seasons. Cov cost us points Stone tried to loose us the play off final . Goalkeeping has been poor all season both keepers are non league at best. I was concerned after the Wycombe game ! We have just gone very bad to unbelievably shocking. 
 We are conceding for fun it’s very very concerning can we stop the rot? I hope so ! This season has been so unbelievably frustrating the football on offer has been poor.

[darren1810]

1 hour ago, Rampant Zebra said:

Crookes has matured into a steady national league player, he wasn't that bad. I think we have forgotten how good some of our "not good enough" players were because the latest crop have lowered the bar so much. 

National league!! 

We were league 2 and now 1 .

He barely features for York and Grimsby released him. 

[Santa]

4 minutes ago, Biddulph_PV said:

We are so tactically rigid it beggars belief. The only ‘identity’ we have is that we play 5-3-2 regardless of personnel

We’re not a team. We’re not a group of individuals. We’re a formation. A bunch of sentient traffic cones laid out in a 3-5-2 formation.