January Transfers and Rumours

[Dr Delgado]

5 minutes ago, fuzzyvalefan said:

The cashless thing is a pain in the arse but understandable.  Under the old regimes, it was a poorly kept secret that there was no proper way to track that cash handed over to casual staff actually ended up in the club cuffers and it was pretty common knowledge that some sticky fingered staff kept a bit for themselves in the back pocket.  In terms of questioning are we a club that looks after its own, you only have to go down to the foundation building and Tommy Cheadle's in the week.  Food bank on a Friday for locals who are struggling to make ends meet, Golden Valiants on a Thursday which is now in the hundreds in terms of attendance and is a great lifeline for older people who live on their own to get out and socialise and have a bit of fun, Mens support group on a Monday evening, dementia support on a Tuesday- representatives from the council, mental health charities and all sorts of things on duty to help people with issues- the list goes on.  Thats not even getting to all the free sports and leisure sessions.  If that isnt 'looking after our own' then i dont know what is.  

Vale fans! I’m not questioning the altruistic endeavours of Carol and the community wide work.

I'm talking about looking after Vale fans, you know, the ones that made the club.

[JRC]

4 hours ago, man in the pub said:

My disappointment isn't based just on this window but goes back to the previous January. We were desperate for a striker then and the failure/ gamble in not recruiting one almost took us down. This January has a Deja Vu feel about it and I just hope that our luck holds out this season too.  However to have had such a fundamental problem as a business and not address it , knowing we have that problem smacks of neglegence.Unbelievably I'm not confident that we won't still be in the same situation come the end of the next January transfer window . The problem wasn't sorted last Summer so why will it be sorted this one, strikers will be just as expensive.

Last January we recruited Taylor and most fans were happy with him when signed. At this time last season we had Proctor, Harrison,  Wilson, Taylor and Butterworth in the squad. Today it's Wilson, Loft, Uche and Dipepa.  

[Guest]

What going on about the past for its gone .

Today Carol's in charge and no matter what happens it won't be because of the Shanahans if wedo  go down 

It will everyones fault if allowed to happen  

Make sure it doesn't by setting out to win games with a positive can do attitude,set up to win  removing players who quite frankly should be plying there trade in league 2 mid table at best you know who they are .

Don't try kid me you never will .

Love Vale win some games in fact win every game .

 

Edited February 3 by Devine intervention

[Brian Johnson]

9 hours ago, Guitar Ray said:

He wasn’t dealt a great hand, you’re ignoring the other loanees, who weren’t so good.  Arblaster may have hit the ground running but Devine definitely didn’t.  We were lucky that those 2 worked out.  You’re also ignoring the obvious, he hasn’t had a decent striker to call on all season.

I picked out Arblaster & Devine for an example but I include in that, Garrity, Ojo, etc

In regards to the strikers, do you seriously think that AC did not have a say when it came to signing Loft, Uche and James Wilson?

 

[Brian Johnson]

9 hours ago, PV1973 said:

I disagree. No way were Arblaster and Devine going to carry this team singlehanded. 

I include others in that. See my reply to above to guitar ray

[Guitar Ray]

8 hours ago, man in the pub said:

My disappointment isn't based just on this window but goes back to the previous January. We were desperate for a striker then and the failure/ gamble in not recruiting one almost took us down. This January has a Deja Vu feel about it and I just hope that our luck holds out this season too.  However to have had such a fundamental problem as a business and not address it , knowing we have that problem smacks of negligence.Unbelievably I'm not confident that we won't still be in the same situation come the end of the next January transfer window . The problem wasn't sorted last Summer so why will it be sorted this one, strikers will be just as expensive.

I don’t think anyone will argue with any of this.  The point I was making is how much of this is down to Crosby?  Whilst we’ve undoubtedly signed some good players, we’ve had an unbalanced squad with some gaping holes since gaining promotion, that’s under 2 different first team managers, suggesting the manager is the problem when it comes to recruitment.  Also, the current policy of signing mostly inexperienced young players on loan, whilst good in theory, does tie the managers hands somewhat in that he has to select these players, whether they’re good bad or indifferent.  They don’t, and won’t, all turn out to be great and they don’t all hit the ground running, which inevitably affects the team performance, results and the in turn perception of the manager in the eyes of some folk.  Non of this is to say Croz is blameless but his hands are certainly tied to some degree.

[Guitar Ray]

1 minute ago, Brian Johnson said:

I picked out Arblaster & Devine for an example but I include in that, Garrity, Ojo, etc

In regards to the strikers, do you seriously think that AC did not have a say when it came to signing Loft, Uche and James Wilson?

 

Of course he’ll have had a say, but how much is open to debate.  It’s quite obvious he’s got little say and just has to be a nodding dog and toe the line.  All three you’ve named were desperation signings on the face of it and more likely a case of Crosby being offered a take it or leave it choice by powers that be.  It’d be interesting to see who Crosby would’ve signed if he were in complete control over his own team recruitment.  I’m betting we’d be watching a far better strike force than what we see right now but of course that’s purely hypothetical.

[Brian Johnson]

3 minutes ago, Guitar Ray said:

Of course he’ll have had a say, but how much is open to debate.  It’s quite obvious he’s got little say and just has to be a nodding dog and toe the line.  All three you’ve named were desperation signings on the face of it and more likely a case of Crosby being offered a take it or leave it choice by powers that be.  It’d be interesting to see who Crosby would’ve signed if he were in complete control over his own team recruitment.  I’m betting we’d be watching a far better strike force than what we see right now but of course that’s purely hypothetical.

If Crosby is a nodding dog and is basically a YES man, then he's not strong enough to be a manager

[JoeB2]

It's been that shambolic that expectations have now been reset to 'don't go down'. 

20th will be seen as a relief.

[Warren]

We need to win some games right now. The players in the side / squad since the start of the season have got us 5th bottom of the league. Crosby also being in charge as manager. One thing that annoys me above all else is losing games by way of the wrong strategy and wrong changes in a match. 

Where I am going with this is that the players recently signed, and particularly Lopata and Mighten, need to come into the team straight away. We also urgently need Ojo and Debra playing again regularly. This is about defensive resilience. People are correctly in my view observing our goal scoring is challenged. The answer to that is Chislett must continue to step up and Wilson needs to get fully back up to speed. It may help Wilson's fitness that it's Winter and a fly won't land on his head. They're both very good players at this level. 

Edited February 3 by Warren

[Brian Johnson]

8 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

It's been that shambolic that expectations have now been reset to 'don't go down'. 

 

again

[eh up nah]

36 minutes ago, Brian Johnson said:

If Crosby is a nodding dog and is basically a YES man, then he's not strong enough to be a manager

That is of course true, but perhaps as a club that's what we're after.

[Brian Johnson]

7 minutes ago, eh up nah said:

That is of course true, but perhaps as a club that's what we're after.

Surely you have to be your own man to be a manager

 

[eh up nah]

9 minutes ago, Brian Johnson said:

Surely you have to be your own man to be a manager

 

Definitely 

I suspect there's a big influence from above on what the formations going to be, probably who's in it and even who's being subbed when (in line with the stats).

 

[Jacko51]

11 hours ago, Jacko51 said:

And he was one of a very few people who didn’t lose his share money. 

Some of you might be interested in this.