Vote of No Confidence (2)

[Hitcher]

This is going to sound bonkers, but as long as we stay up, I don't mind that we are trying to play a more technical type of football.

In the long run I can't see how we could get promoted to the championship playing reactive, hit on the break football. Occasionally you get a freak team that do, but on the whole all the teams that go up control possession and are more technical. I think the club want that style of play as any youth players we develop who play nice football have more chance of a higher sale fee. It also helps with attracting high potential loan players which is something we are seeing this season. 

Things are really rubbish right now in the league and that needs to change soon. However I'm not yet at the point where I think we need to rip up all the progress that has been made, sit back and go more direct. Like it or not we are stuck with our current strikers till January. Would a new manager be able to do more with our current strikers?

I think it's clear from some of the interviews earlier in the year we got priced out of top tier strikers and invested more in midfield instead. Is that Crosby's fault? Or is that the constraints of being a mid sized league one team.

Final thought but we fixed the goalie situation this season, after realising we got it completely wrong last season. Maybe the same will happen with a striker in January/next summer. I think the reality is that it is probably really hard to get everything right at once. As long as we don't go backwards in the next window I think we'll be ok. I'm still with Crosby for now.

[LancyTony]

On 16/11/2023 at 15:55, MBE said:

...To your point though there are gems in non league.

And pretty much every club in England and Scotland...and some in Europe...trying to find them!

[LancyTony]

On 17/11/2023 at 12:16, Bobnewtonian said:

I think this is as fit as Uche gets......? what you see now is what you get if you sign him for the next couple of years. He was like this many years ago when we had him even at a much younger age...

 

Not so - he has definitely played better and been fitter in the Championship. But, I'd guess, trying to get match-fit whilst not actually being fully fit must be difficult?

[LancyTony]

On 21/11/2023 at 09:16, The man in the pub said:

Just had a quick look and of the 25 games we have played  this season ,in all competitions we have scored 2 or more goals in only 6 games, in 9 games we failed to score.  That means in the 10 other games we scored 1 goal.  So out of the 25 games played in 19 games we either scored 1 goal or failed to score, and therein lies our problem. Apart from the opening day, we arent getting stuffed by the opposition, but equally if the opposition score 2 against us we are stuffed.

It's not that simple - if we score but our defence makes 2 unforced errors resulting in goals, that is the problem!

[LancyTony]

On 26/11/2023 at 10:02, hamilboy said:

what did John Rudge do in his first season now we are building a statue for him give him time we are playing some of the best football i have seen at vale park in my lifetime.We all know what we want  but the Andy Jones Bert Llewellyns Roy Sprosons and Dean Glovers of this world do not grow on trees they cost a lot of money jumping on the bandwagon of get him out will not help time will be patient we will get there.

Agree with this. Depending on the Cup results we may be able to strengthen in the January window. But we need the time between to let players regain fitness and see the upturn in results!  Replacing AC now would be a major error and financial calamity!

[Phil500]

On 26/11/2023 at 02:33, MelbourneValiant said:

Well,  he is the manager and should be signing and identifying players. So it does stop with him, and so does playing ineffective tactics week after week. We needed a new manager at the end of October (that being kind) so the new guy could find out what he needs for January. Come Christmas when Crosby is finally sacked it will be too late.

It is a complete farce to keep holding on. I have zero faith in the club at the moment, we cannot even say 'but for Wigan's point deduction we would be lower, they leapfrogged us. I cannot see where the next win is coming from.

That is not his job. We have other employees to do that. He may have a final say, but that may come down to xxx or nobody. Gone are the days of Rudge going to watch players five or six times a week. 

[LancyTony]

On 26/11/2023 at 11:04, pete vale said:

...If anything the DOF and the committee need to be looked at. Not convinced all is rosy in the Port Vale garden.

Nothing feels rosy when a team is losing games...but not creating chances at all would be worse. Instead of carrying out some kind of ludicrous vendetta against DF, accept that players he and recruitment team have brought in were upgrades on what we already had? 

[LancyTony]

On 26/11/2023 at 10:22, JoeB2 said:

I've seen the great name of John Rudge invoked/soiled to defend the name of every bad manager we have. We need to stop. Folk were saying it about Sinnott and Michael Brown when they got us relegated. It's disrespectful to the great man.

A once in a lifetime manager having a dodgy first season nearly 40 years ago cannot be justification for giving obviously inadequate managers more time in a completely different footballing world. Stop, please.

Look at the individual merits/flaws of Crosby and make your judgement there. Don't just fall back on, 'well, Rudgie had a bad season, ergo you cannot sack managers'.

Fairly ridiculous defence of the great John Rudge!!!! The obvious truth is if he hadn't been given time he couldn't have gone on to be the success he was! To mention his name, and failings, within a valid context, isn't soiling his memory in any way, or being disrespectful, it's simply stating fact(s)!

[LancyTony]

On 26/11/2023 at 14:14, Devine intervention said:

Easy blame the manager .

He plays Ojo in back 3 v Burton we control the game and win; he does it yesterday we concede 2 diabolical goals for a professional side and we lose and folk are going whys Ojo back there yet I thought he was the best of the 3...

Exactly this!

[LancyTony]

23 hours ago, MBE said:

...We have very slow play, predictable, zero penetration...

...The question is do you really believe Crosby can come up with a different game plan or is prepared to try an alternative different to get a different result?

With zero penetration we would have no goals and no chances and you would be right to make that statement. But, you're not! And AC nor any other coach can eliminate personal errors from a player - because people make mistakes...but they don't plan to!

[mr.hobblesworth]

You know, people might take you slightly more seriously if you weren't on some weird one man mission to constantly defend the club. You're coming across as a bit mental.

[LancyTony]

4 hours ago, 1 said:

The sad thing is if Crosby does get sacked, we will lose the coaching, passion, personality and player communication he brings. That is all valuable and does not require him to be manager. I'd like him as assistant under a different manager but obviously that's untenable.

As with any other field of business there comes a time when someone has earned the chance to progress within that field. To deny that opportunity causes stagnation within that business - giving no incentive for people to do their best! AC did a good job as stand-in, and fully deserved the promotion and backing he has received. I wonder what the results would have been without the injuries we had? I'd suggest there would be no reason for this poor spell to have happened?

[ValeForever.]

1 hour ago, Hitcher said:

This is going to sound bonkers, but as long as we stay up, I don't mind that we are trying to play a more technical type of football.

In the long run I can't see how we could get promoted to the championship playing reactive, hit on the break football. Occasionally you get a freak team that do, but on the whole all the teams that go up control possession and are more technical. I think the club want that style of play as any youth players we develop who play nice football have more chance of a higher sale fee. It also helps with attracting high potential loan players which is something we are seeing this season. 

Things are really rubbish right now in the league and that needs to change soon. However I'm not yet at the point where I think we need to rip up all the progress that has been made, sit back and go more direct. Like it or not we are stuck with our current strikers till January. Would a new manager be able to do more with our current strikers?

I think it's clear from some of the interviews earlier in the year we got priced out of top tier strikers and invested more in midfield instead. Is that Crosby's fault? Or is that the constraints of being a mid sized league one team.

Final thought but we fixed the goalie situation this season, after realising we got it completely wrong last season. Maybe the same will happen with a striker in January/next summer. I think the reality is that it is probably really hard to get everything right at once. As long as we don't go backwards in the next window I think we'll be ok. I'm still with Crosby for now.

Bang on.

[darren1810]

I'm all for balance. We all have views but it's as though Crosby is somehow excused/exempt from this current malaise with some posters. 

He is the manager. Whether he's a lovely bloke or whatever you can simply not defend the results. They are simply appalling including 2 very damaging home losses to Burton and Cheltenham. 

Let's make this very clear .We could not have handpicked a better route to the last 8 in the cup. Whilst it's a fantastic achievement and opportunity the highest placed team we've beaten is Fleetwood. This run has papered over widening cracks within the starting X1. 

At this moment in time he's doing a dreadful job. 

What I'd like to know is if there's a cut off point ? 10 games,15 games or even more ? .

Saturday was so so predictable I'm sure many will agree with me there ? So if that's the case there has to be something done relatively soon. 

If we lose tomorrow it's so Vale like to win at Stevenage and reach round 3 and once again a stay of execution .

As a last resort I'd give the 3 pre Christmas league games and then a decision has to be made. 

 

[LancyTony]

4 hours ago, Emile said:

...For me, the way the club handled Clarke's dismissal was and still is, unforgivable. Thrown under the bus without as much of a thankyou. Suggesting the club went through the loss of his daughter together, unfathomable. Crosby coming in and pretending Clarke didn't exist for me showed an absolute lack of respect. We then bodged our way through the end of the season, bodged our way through hiring a new manager and then limped through a preseason schedule of playing the local primary school in a friendly match in Spain. The writing was on the wall - we don't have anyone who actually knows how to manage the football team and until we resolve this issue we are heading for relegation. Hire a new experience manager, hire some good coaches and give them an input on the players we need to buy / sell in January - this will be enough to keep us up.

Like I said before, I would be really happy to be proved wrong here, but from the outside, it seems pretty obvious what is going wrong and how it was going to go wrong the moment we decided not to even bother looking for a replacement for the manager.

I can't believe you honestly feel that way about the end to DCs spell with us. You clearly have no empathy for Carol in the situation she found herself in? DC has since admitted he came back too soon - that says everything about Carol's treatment, in trying to protect DC, whilst still having a job to do to protect her football club! Had he taken more time off and come back in a better state of mind, he may not have been sacked? But - FFS - can we please stop rehashing this? It's not fair to anyone!