Match Thread: Lincoln City v Port Vale

[Sandyford_Lion]

18 hours ago, Guitar Ray said:

Excellent passes but Benning is in front of the goalscorer and should be first to the ball to clear the first.  It’s terrible defending.  The pass for the second goal looked like Forrester completely misjudged the flight to me, although I admit I haven’t watched it back.

Benning had to get to the ball first. Poor.

Forrester was too late in tracking back. Mad him look such a poor defender.

Should a keeper be beaten from such a distance with a header.

Stone is so slow in movement and getting down to the floor

[Sandyford_Lion]

17 hours ago, Guitar Ray said:

We’ve seen some rubbish before December but the some really good performance against the “big” teams and a few wins papered over the cracks in hindsight.  Going back to August when our performances were bad they were truly awful, think away games v Exeter, MK Dons, Posh, Oxford where we weren’t just beaten we simply haven’t turned up.  We clearly needed strengthening and by the time we were part way through the January window every fan could see exactly where we needed strengthening.  It didn’t happen.

The job to replace this squad is so big we had to start in January. We needed replacement players for Hall and a midfield player. Yes we were unfortunate to lose Jones. I am sure Donnelly was a bench player to cover the odd game.

You are right about performances thro the whole season. I forgot. I was brainwashed by reading ' what is the problem ' " we are 9th in the league "

[dazzerjames]

What is nonsense about it? Should remain speechless if you don’t think that is a valid question.

I did remain speechless , but I answered your question .. one scored for us .. one didn’t play .. neither will be at Oxford next year

[Brian Johnson]

4 minutes ago, Sandyford_Lion said:

The job to replace this squad is so big we had to start in January. We needed replacement players for Hall and a midfield player. Yes we were unfortunate to lose Jones. I am sure Donnelly was a bench player to cover the odd game.

You are right about performances thro the whole season. I forgot. I was brainwashed by reading ' what is the problem ' " we are 9th in the league "

Rudgie always said that you would have two types of transfer lists for targets.

The first list would be a list of targets if you stay in the same league and another set of targets if you are going to be playing in a different league, up or down

[Iron Curtain]

Feels like we are not up for a fight at the moment… if things are all square and we have a chance then we are putting in some “ok” performances like Portsmouth (until they scored) or Oxford (second half)

But as soon as things turn negative (Portsmouth score) or a team comes and gets in our faces and plays rough (Accrington) we fold.

Given this I don’t think Bristol Rovers is the one that will hopefully get us the point(s) we need. Barton has them as a scrappy horrible team all year round.

I’m hoping that a sunny away day at Charlton, nice pitch, they have nothing to play for we can get out there and play ok enough to scrap a result.

Wishful thinking! 🤞🤞

[philpvfc]

9 minutes ago, dazzerjames said:

I did remain speechless , but I answered your question .. one scored for us .. one didn’t play .. neither will be at Oxford next year

Constructive answer……well done

[geoff1]

16 hours ago, LancyTony said:

Or bad decision-making by 2 players?

or both!!

[dazzerjames]

Constructive answer……well done

Thank you

[Biddulph_PV]

54 minutes ago, Iron Curtain said:

Feels like we are not up for a fight at the moment… if things are all square and we have a chance then we are putting in some “ok” performances like Portsmouth (until they scored) or Oxford (second half)

But as soon as things turn negative (Portsmouth score) or a team comes and gets in our faces and plays rough (Accrington) we fold.

Given this I don’t think Bristol Rovers is the one that will hopefully get us the point(s) we need. Barton has them as a scrappy horrible team all year round.

I’m hoping that a sunny away day at Charlton, nice pitch, they have nothing to play for we can get out there and play ok enough to scrap a result.

Wishful thinking! 🤞🤞

I agree re Charlton being our most likely source of points. There’s no chance we’ll get them against Plymouth unless they completely screw things up and rest people for the PO’s. As you say, Brizzle likely to be another Accie-type scrap which we just don’t have the physicality / backbone for, and there’s more chance of me picking the winning lottery numbers than getting anything at Ipswich. I know nothing about Charlton at the moment, and they looked a really non-descript side when we played them at home, other than that Sessignon. 

[MBE]

5 hours ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

We should have never have had to resort to Stevens in the first place. I don't give a <ovf censored> about mealy-mouthed excuses regarding a short pre-season, it was clear that we needed a new keeper after Covolan's dismissal against Swindon and options should have been identified well before August. DF conducting zoom interviews sitting on his arse in Spain won't have helped the process either. I said all this at the start of the season and was slated by the usuals on here, @Iron Curtain repeatedly called me "disrespectful" for stating the obvious. And I bet we haven't identified any targets even now. 

People tied themselves up in knots trying to defend the shambles of the pre-season and us having to play games without a striker. "Oh, we always go out of the league cup early, it's fine basically throwing the game.", "Oh, DC's clubs always start slow, it's fine." "Actually, you'll find Thierry Small can play up front, it doesn't matter that we haven't got any fit forwards." <ovf censored> idiots.

Unfortunately, Flitcroft seems embedded in the club now and his extravagances are having a massively detrimental effect on the whole club. 

Mr H, I agree the GK situation has been problematic -  no farcical but our pre-season is not the reason why we are <ovf censored> and clinging to survival. The 1st half of the season we were decent so I disagree with your point about pre-season, we did what we could with little time which prepared us for the 1st half of the season and got us within striking distance of the play offs (with or without a striker) and we were extremely competitive. 

The sheer number of loans in the squad ( poor ones at that) is a terrible situation but Clarke even said at the recent fans forum it wasn't a problem to have that many in his squad. Flitcroft does not train the players, picks the team (it's like a raffle at times), tactics, formation or motivate the players.

Sorry this is run of form January onwards is on Clarke not Flitcroft. Clarke's lost his edge.It has shown in his pre and post match interviews and very noticeable on the touchline.

I will hold Flitcroft responsible for NOT acting if we are relegated. He was asleep at the wheel during this run, watching the same rubbish as us and seeing players had downed tools and also  stopped responding to Clarke.

 

[Paul6754]

3 hours ago, TJHValiant said:

Anyone remember the home win under Millwall early in that season that pushed us up to 4th? People were getting really excited and thought we would end up getting promoted. The wheels soon fell off. Post TV MK Dons win it all died off. 
 

Selling Grant and Alnwick was a tragedy but this season there have been no such suicidal decisions except letting Hall leave. Which really should not have the impact it appears to have had. 
 

The thing with that season is, we were wildly unpredictable and clubs had no idea how to play us and fans didn’t have a clue how all the obscure players would do. 
 

This season we all know what will happen. Rigid, restrictive set ups of the same old players with no real gambles. This consistency would be being celebrated if we were still 9th…but that’s long gone and more experimentation was needed.

Vale lost Grant and Alnwick and there was not much we could do about it, we also lost Alex Jones and the center Half, Anderson ? in the Jan window, both were on loan and both were loaned out to other clubs (Bradford and Donnie ?) so we lost a big part of the spine of the team.

Michael Brown did manage to bring in Chris Eagles and Steve Bikey ? and one or two others but we went down by one point. Bruno and the b'stard Smurthwaite had ripped the playing heart out of PVFC the summer before.

 

[Bycarsbill]

2 hours ago, Trumpingtonvale said:

How do Cambridge fit into your thoughts?

Greatly, as they're on an unbeaten 4 match run, but an obvious omission in my above post and I thank you for pointing this out. I was trying to suggest that IMO the fourth relegated club will almost certainly come from Oxford, MK, PV and Cambridge. Thanks again. 

[Wrex]

25 minutes ago, Paul6754 said:

ichael Brown did manage to bring in Chris Eagles and Steve Bikey ?

 

Andre not Steve lol

[Trumpingtonvale]

1 hour ago, Bycarsbill said:

Greatly, as they're on an unbeaten 4 match run, but an obvious omission in my above post and I thank you for pointing this out. I was trying to suggest that IMO the fourth relegated club will almost certainly come from Oxford, MK, PV and Cambridge. Thanks again. 

I went the Camb-Posh game yesterday (complimentary tickets) and Cambridge played from the off with the confidence and quality they only showed once they’d gone in front against us at VP. Posh looked as if they could step it it up at anytime but I felt there was an element of complacency or even arrogance in their attitude and play and they ultimately paid the price, struggling to step it up when they actually had to to get back in the game.  Of all the teams l’ve seen in recent weeks that are below us, Cambridge would be my favourites to get out of it, ironically potentially at the expense of Oxford (I’m still in denial that it could be us!).

[1]

No way Oxford catch us.