January Transfers and Rumours

[Guitar Ray]

28 minutes ago, Brian Johnson said:

We were rubbish, boring and slow playing that possession football which is why we went on a real bad run.

Against Northampton it was boring.

Once it got changed, everything took a step up & the fans were getting excited & behind it which to be fair, the fans were really getting disgruntled leading up to it.

I have mentioned this quite a few times already but the way that we started to play was stumbled on at half-time against Barnsley because Crosby was no doubt on the verge being sacked & and he gave up his believes to save his backside in that 15 minute half time break.

Your memory is shot.  Earlier in the season we were playing some great possession based football.  That is a fact.  Ok, towards the end of our barren run things had got too slow and turgid but even during that run we’d played well in games, we played great in the cups away at Mansfield and Burton for example.  As I said, your stats are just nonsense because there are also games where we had low possession numbers which we lost.

Crosbys hand was as much forced by the injuries to the squad along with players he had available rather than any desire to change the philosophy.  Our recruitment will tell us what that philosophy will be going forward.  Joe summed it up in an earlier post, it’s the way the “club” want to play rather than just Croz, he’s simply tasked with delivering that at first team level.

[Brian Johnson]

Just now, Guitar Ray said:

Your memory is shot.  Earlier in the season we were playing some great possession based football.  That is a fact.  Ok, towards the end of our barren run things had got too slow and turgid but even during that run we’d played well in games, we played great in the cups away at Mansfield and Burton for example.  As I said, your stats are just nonsense because there are also games where we had low possession numbers which we lost.

Crosbys hand was as much forced by the injuries to the squad along with players he had available rather than any desire to change the philosophy.  Our recruitment will tell us what that philosophy will be going forward.  Joe summed it up in an earlier post, it’s the way the “club” want to play rather than just Croz, he’s simply tasked with delivering that at first team level.

So Crosby is a yes man then? 

My memory is not short. You read my posts because you always have a pop at me but I was saying right from the off that I'm not getting or seeing what other people were seeing. 

People were coming on here saying I can not believe that we have not battered them etc but i was seeing a team having loads of possession and not doing anything it but people were going overboard on it.

The dire run that we went on was no surprise to me and obviously once we have more players available again, they are going to revert back to playing that way. Which is why they have no problem in moving Uche on because that style of play does not suit him

[Osh]

11 hours ago, NEWPORT VALIANT said:

 Liam Brazier young Vale talent on the radar of "Spanish Giants Barcelona", it might well be " pie in the sky", but the information has surfaced from somewhere.

 Whatever speculation there is surely to a certain degree is good news for the club in general. Can never remember a season like this for so much young talent coming off the Vale Academy production line and integrated into the first team squad.

 Also this season bringing in " Premier League Young Talents", Olly Arblaster and Alfie Devine who today made his Championship debut for Plymouth Argyle and had an assist in one of Plymouth's goals.

 Vale have know brought in Jensen Weir from Brighton, who was very productive last season at Morecambe. Now young centre back Rhys Williams from Liverpool and a possibility of another talented young starlet Dan Gore midfield player from Manchester United.

 I think it is amazing that a club such as PORT VALE can attract young talent that want to learn their footballing trade at Vale and fair play to Andy Crosby. He may well not be everyone's cup of tea. But full admiration to him for giving youth chance and introducing Premier League Starlets of the future to " The Wembley of The North at Vale Park".

UTV

Well said.  Great post m8

[Brian Johnson]

9 minutes ago, Conrad said:

I don’t begrudge any player wanting to play at a higher level, but when it’s a team in the same division it’s a bit galling.

The issue is when you are at this level, you are 29 years old and you know you are not going to play higher than League One again, you will always go for the money.

If he went to Charlton, he would have his 6 months of his contract paid up at Vale, a signing on fee at Charlton, probably would be on £2k to £3k per week more in basic wages alone before any bonuses.

If he goes back to Wycombe, it would be same scenario like about above but maybe £1k to £2k per week extra in wages

Its all about the money at this level because it's just a job to them.

[Osh]

6 hours ago, Devine intervention said:

Really good that all these kids are coming through at Vale .

To be honest it's the only way the club can survive a production line of talented youngsters making the grade .

I think the clubs got a smashing identity at the moment long may it continue .

One went to A Villa another to Newcastle Utd two of the young uns have signed there first pro contract lomax and Dipepa .

Walters next hopefully Stoke will not play you fella do not go there that's my message to him .

After all wasn't it Vale who give you your way into football.

Don't forget that when you make the decision you will eventually be making

UTV 

 

 

 

 

So, you're going again...??  Jeeezzzz - and here was little old excited me hoping for a free season ticket for the rest of the season 🤣

On a serious note - i love the way the club is developing. ❤️

[Osh]

45 minutes ago, Diego Maradona said:

Totally appreciate that Loft hasn't shown much but I do think he deserves a longer run in the team (if we are going to judge him fairly) According to the stats I've seen, he's played 448 minutes in League 1 this season. So, in total: 5 games. Don't get me wrong that't's enough time to have scored a couple of goals but it isn't much time. Also, when he has played, how many of those was he up front on his own?  
 

For me, Uche and Wilson start. But judging Loft when playing alongside Wilson (and for a number of games) would be much more fair. Playing alongside Wilson may bring out the best in him? But, may be not. But at least he would have had a fair chance.

I haven't totally written Loft off and I do want him to succeed.

Agreed.  The other thing is 'service' - as he's a goal poacher scorer in the old fashioned sense and needs service, which I don't believe we've given him.  Expecting him to come deep and get the ball, hold it up and lay it off as NOT what we should be asking him to do.  We should be asking him NEVER to leave the outline of the widest points of the 18yard box and we should be feeding it in to dangerous areas for him to attack.

[PV1973]

42 minutes ago, werstayinup said:

With the deal for Uche breaking down i wonder if Wycombe will come in again for him considering the rumours suggest he failed a medical.

The club are clearly happy for him to talk to other clubs so does that spell the end for him anyway here? I have no idea

 

1 hour ago, Brian Johnson said:

If you think Uche is a class act, god knows what you would be like if we actually had a class act striker.

A Dr would need to give you an injection every day to calm you down

The thing is that football clubs up and down the country have seen what Uche can bring to a team and have bought him in to do a job. He isn’t making a career of it by being totally crap. 

37 minutes ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

That might not be true, his contract could stipulate that he can talk to other clubs and it could be his agent hawking him around. 

The old dreaded nasty agent theory. No contract is going to say you talk to other clubs if you want to. It may have a release clause in there. Maybe other clubs have contacted us and come in for him who are looking for a striker like him? Maybe we’ve told him he can go as we’ll get a fee? Maybe he’s unhappy here and wants to leave?  Maybe he hasn’t brought to the team what we thought he would and we have someone else lined up? Maybe he’s going to get more money by moving? Loads of factors come in to play and other clubs will know he only has 6 months left in his deal. 

39 minutes ago, Conrad said:

Not often I agree with you but in this case I do agree, he ditched it because he knew he was getting close to being sacked.

I disagree. We’re losing a game that we need to get back in and what we were doing in the first half wasn’t working, he had to change it and whether we were top of the league or bottom I think he would have done the same. 

Edited January 21 by PV1973

[Warren]

19 hours ago, Oggydoggy said:

Dan gore in dubai

Cats can be good in goal for shooting in practice. Our cat Whisky used to love saving ping pong balls with his paws. Definitely faster reactions than Ripley. 

Edited January 21 by Warren

[Brian Johnson]

12 minutes ago, PV1973 said:

 

I disagree. We’re losing a game that we need to get back in and what we were doing in the first half wasn’t working, he had to change it and whether we were top of the league or bottom I think he would have done the same. 

He's had all season to change the way we play at half time v Barnsley? It was desperation from Crosby 

[Brian Johnson]

14 minutes ago, PV1973 said:

 

The thing is that football clubs up and down the country have seen what Uche can bring to a team and have bought him in to do a job. He isn’t making a career of it by being totally crap. 

 

Not disputing that, I was just pointing out that he's making a very good League One career and making very good financially by swapping clubs all the time. 

[Guppys left peg]

Looks like Bradford now asking for £500k for Jake Young. In other words no way is anyone daft enough to pay that for someone with one purple patch in his career. Can’t fault them for trying though, hopefully we adopt the same hard nosed approach on any bids. Carlisle also moved on to Jack Marriott now.

[JoeB2]

I just think we're in the very tricky 'build-phase' of this longer term plan.

We're trying to shift the club's whole approach to fit this new model of possession football, elite loans, academy production, and statistic-led recruitment, which needs a Head Coach willing to implement it and a DoF + owner who can see 5 years down the line and doesn't buckle at the first sign of pressure. This sort of change takes time. Fans are understandably going to get annoyed if they're not enjoying the games.

It's tricky, as fans pay money to watch it and sometimes it's not very fun having to sit through the short-term boring stuff. The DoF is getting paid to implement it so short-term entertainment is less important. I feel there's a disconnect currently between Flitcroft's vision and the match-to-match experience of some the paying fans.

The challenge for Flitcroft and Carol is, then, to effectively sell the journey that we're on and convince the fans to stick with this tricky build phase, where we have to adapt our style to convince elite loan players to sign for us. In the short-term it might be dull and confusing, seeing a usually aggressive and direct Port Vale perform a pretty bad tribute to Pep's Man City, but the long-term is that the likes of Devine, Blaster, and Gore will become commonplace loans, and we can build a squad with similar quality to Posh and Derby without the budget.

With Crosby, he's a piece of the larger jigsaw, someone completely happy to subsume himself to the wider club strategy. The chances are, as with 80% of coaches, he won't last 2 years, and he'll be replaced by someone with a very similar outlook on football (mostly probably a youth coach, ala Ian Foster at Plymouth) to fit into this new club model. We don't use a messiah model anymore. There isn't going to be a John Rudge. The success of PVFC will be dependent on whether we pull off this whole club strategy successfully.

That's where I'm at. I think there is a direction of travel but explaining it has been a bit piecemeal, a bit garbled, maybe a bit patronising (Ojo 'educating' the fans), with no coherent story for the fans and a fair bit of business-speak jargon. This next fans' forum is a very good opportunity to create a narrative around what we're doing, so as much as passing it sideways and having loan players recalled is frustrating, we know what the point of it is. Whether we can stick the short-term boredom as a fanbase is a different discussion.

Edited January 21 by JoeB2

[soothsayer]

1 hour ago, Brian Johnson said:

If he went to Charlton, he would have his 6 months of his contract paid up at Vale, a signing on fee at Charlton, probably would be on £2k to £3k per week more in basic wages alone before any bonuses.

That isn’t how contracts work! If he left Vale in January his contract with us would be cancelled as he’s effectively broken it. That’s not to say he wouldn’t be financially better off by moving but he’d need to factor this into his move. 
The main motivation for him may also be location as Uche hails from the South East.

[JoeB2]

15 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

I just think we're in the very tricky 'build-phase' of this longer term plan.

We're trying to shift the club's whole approach to fit this new model of possession football, elite loans, academy production, and statistic-led recruitment, which needs a Head Coach willing to implement it and a DoF + owner who can see 5 years down the line and doesn't buckle at the first sign of pressure. This sort of change takes time. Fans are understandably going to get annoyed if they're not enjoying the games.

It's tricky, as fans pay money to watch it and sometimes it's not very fun having to sit through the short-term boring stuff. The DoF is getting paid to implement it so short-term entertainment is less important. I feel there's a disconnect currently between Flitcroft's vision and the match-to-match experience of some the paying fans.

The challenge for Flitcroft and Carol is, then, to effectively sell the journey that we're on and convince the fans to stick with this tricky build phase, where we have to adapt our style to convince elite loan players to sign for us. In the short-term it might be dull and confusing, seeing a usually aggressive and direct Port Vale perform a pretty bad tribute to Pep's Man City, but the long-term is that the likes of Devine, Blaster, and Gore will become commonplace loans, and we can build a squad with similar quality to Posh and Derby without the budget.

With Crosby, he's a piece of the larger jigsaw, someone completely happy to subsume himself to the wider club strategy. The chances are, as with 80% of coaches, he won't last 2 years, and he'll be replaced by someone with a very similar outlook on football (mostly probably a youth coach, ala Ian Foster at Plymouth) to fit into this new club model. We don't use a messiah model anymore. There isn't going to be a John Rudge. The success of PVFC will be dependent on whether we pull off this whole club strategy successfully.

That's where I'm at. I think there is a direction of travel but explaining it has been a bit piecemeal, a bit garbled, maybe a bit patronising (Ojo 'educating' the fans), with no coherent story for the fans and a fair bit of business-speak jargon. This next fans' forum is a very good opportunity to create a narrative around what we're doing, so as much as passing it sideways and having loan players recalled is frustrating, we know what the point of it is. Whether we can stick the short-term boredom as a fanbase is a different discussion.

Think I can more succinctly argue this by saying that the payoff for what we're doing now is going to be in 2-3 seasons time - and even that isn't guaranteed. We're playing quite dull possession football, signing loan players who inevitably get recalled, and giving minutes to young players who probably aren't ready in the hope that we get the rewards in 2027.

The possession football makes us a more attractive proposition to both technical lower-league players, and Category 1 academies. By developing Devine and Arblaster we now have a track record of development to sell to Man City, Liverpool, and Man Utd. By playing Dipepa, Lomax, and Shorrock, we show the top 15 year olds in the country that there's a concrete pathway.

That's fine if you're getting paid to oversee it, but less fine if you're paying to watch it.

The challenge is bringing the fans into the process and achieving buy-in, even if some never will. It's making each week just about entertaining enough to avoid the fans turning and the DoF/Owner facing real pressure to bin off a project they'd committed 5 years to.

Edited January 21 by JoeB2

[smithie]

14 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Think I can more succinctly argue this by saying that the payoff for what we're doing now is going to be in 2-3 seasons time - and even that isn't guaranteed. We're playing quite dull possession football, signing loan players who inevitably get recalled, and giving minutes to young players who probably aren't ready in the hope that we get the rewards in 2027.

The possession football makes us a more attractive proposition to both technical lower-league players, and Category 1 academies. By developing Devine and Arblaster we now have a track record of development to sell to Man City, Liverpool, and Man Utd. By playing Dipepa, Lomax, and Shorrock, we show the top 15 year olds in the country that there's a concrete pathway.

That's fine if you're getting paid to oversee it, but less fine if you're paying to watch it.

The challenge is bringing the fans into the process and achieving buy-in, even if some never will. It's making each week just about entertaining enough to avoid the fans turning and the DoF/Owner facing real pressure to bin off a project they'd committed 5 years to.

Some of the people who stand near me haven't got the patience to see how 5 passes develop never mind 5 years.