Who’s to blame?

[Powerline]

Carol, Flitcroft, or Crosby? Personally it’s all 3 for me.

Crosby totally clueless as a manager but let’s face it he’s been given a dreadful squad to work with, having to start Loft up front sums it up. He has to go.

Flitcroft’s recruitment been awful this season, to come out of Jan with no striker is genuinely incredible. Appointed Crosby with no interview. Somehow not sacked him yet. He also has to go.

And then Carol - to be fair to Flitcroft, we don’t know why we didn’t sign anyone. If we had no money then not much he could do. I’m getting sick of this poverty vale stuff. I’m not expecting us to break the bank, but we shouldn’t have a bottom 4 budget. We have the 15th highest average attendance this season. It’s about 4k higher than fleetwood’s who tonked us today. Then we’ve sold those two youth lads for a few hundred grand. Where the hell is the money going?? Somehow the mighty Burton Albion managed to afford to sack their manager and bring in forwards in Jan. They’re not a rich club.

And all this vale campus and Robbie crap, do me a favour. So out of touch with the average fan, travelling up and down the country to watch utter garbage. I love Carol and will be forever grateful for her saving the club, but she really needs to realise that at the end of the day we are a football club. No use having ‘championship ready’ facilities when we’re back in league 2 next year. Stand up and show some leadership, please.

[JoeB2]

In any walk of life, the buck stops at the top.

[darren1810]

This is the interview in the aftermath of Clarke sacking.

Clarke, Flitcroft and huge decisions at Port Vale - Every word from Carol Shanahan - Stoke-on-Trent Live

WWW.STOKESENTINEL.CO.UK

 

[Guitar Ray]

Carol owns the club.  She’s a good owner.  Perfect?  No, who is?  The football side of the club seems to be good in parts, not so good in others.  First team not good right now and that’s the most important thing to fans.  Carol has appointed Flickers to manage all football matters so he’s responsible for the first team, therefore culpable for any failings.  Part of that responsibility is to appoint a first team manager/coach and staff.  He’s appointed Croz, who’s falling short as it stands.  Another part of the responsibility of the DoF is overseeing recruitment.  The squad is short in key areas and has been since promotion.  Quite simply we’ve failed to recruit properly.  Everyone can see it.   The DoF has set out a blueprint for the style of football the club will play, the thinking seemingly being it will give us an “identity” which will make it easier to attract young Premier League loanees to augment the squad.  All well and good if these players come good, but even then, as we’ve seen, if they subsequently get recalled we’re seeking replacements.  We have big plans with training pitches at Bradley, the Dimensions link with the council, the Burslem college collaboration.  Big plans,  The stadium still needs investment to keep it up to the required standards.  The “club” as an entity was mentioned at the forum but to the average fan this means the product on the pitch and without that the rest would not exist..  We need to go back to basics and Carol needs to reassess.  I’ve no idea on what our budget is but the balance needs to swing more heavily towards the first team squad.  The window has shut so we’re hamstrung, yet again.  The manager will bear the brunt of the flak, maybe ultimately losing his job, but he’s not the only one failing and it may be that failings elsewhere in the structure cost him his job..

[Guest]

Who's to blame .

The players there the ones who wear the shirts .

Bet they were clean after yesterday .

Folk can blame the manager as much as they want these performances have been so regular last 12 months .

The atmosphere at games is poor .

The players on body language don't want to know .

Yet a few weeks ago we having 29 attempts at goal .

Last 2 games there's been a lack of pride in the shirt .

Carol needs sell up if she can not take us any further .

We thank but they got to go now .

People blaming Flitcroft I don't get that not his fault Arblaster and Devine were recalled cause performance were acceptable when they were here .

The manager well like any manager you can only work with what you have .

Yesterday's performance I've seen so often over the years (reason why I no longer go away games I go the home through loyalty to the club I love).

So all in all its everyone's fault but I blame the players mostly it's like they are part of a illegal betting ring with some of them or maybe they are paid so little they don't care 🤷 

I hear they looked after and they perform like that for a sell out away crowd 

I personally wouldn't show my face again at work if I performed so poorly .

They will they will have too 

Be lucky survive in league 2 on the basis of yesterday's performance .

If we stay up if will be a minor miracle. 

[ollyandpatch]

The director of Football is the guy to blame. Not the owner of the company or even the coach. 

IF we had a director of Kits and we kept turning up for away games in the wrong strip he would sacked.  Flitcroft is the head of this 'football' club. !!  

 

[valeparklife]

I would say Flitcroft.

Carol has openly said she doesn't have the knowledge/time to run the football side of things and appointed Flitcroft to do that.

As an ex player with over 500 professional appearances at a good level + over 300 games as a manager, he hardly lacked experience.

But...

After yet another poor transfer window where obvious deficiencies weren't addressed again (strikers and LWB) + appointing Crosby when he was part of the previous failed management team (without even interviewing anyone else) + then failing to admit his mistake after the Cheltenham game and sack him, we're in this mess because of him.

[Emile]

DF for throwing Clarke under the bus

Carol for letting it happen

DF for appointing a clearly <ovf censored> candidate

Carol for letting it happen

DF for not sacking him after the Cheltenham defeat

Carol for letting it happen 

[Rockape99]

It’s all 3 of them  but it’s fate dealt us a lousy hand as well 

Carol is a good owner and has sunk 10 million in . However she out sourced the footballing side to a bloke who contributed to Bury demise. This football charlatan has recruited poorly and not delivered on the crucial areas he identified, for me this makes his position untenable.

Crosby is a good guy but has been found wanting as a manager, the idea is the charlatan is suppose to develop, recruit players and mentor him, the charlatan has failed on all areas.

injuries - Jesus knows what we done to get so many major injuries but questions lie for this from the medical and coaching staff. This has hampered us massively. Big questions need asking to that group by Carol as they have thrown her money down the drain .

Vale Park has had it life and we throwing good money after bad with it up keep , as much as I hate the idea it would be cheaper to source a new stadium in the long run.

Carol her self , we need clear leadership but where is she ? Why isn’t she fronting this up ?

In conclusion Carol needs to rid this club of the charlatan, show leadership and dig her investment out of this mess , instead of listening to the charlatan ask J R  for advice what to do next as JR has the clubs best interests at heart 

[Rampant Zebra]

Flitcroft is to blame for me. He paid for Clarke to come and wreck the place like he did with Bristol Rovers and Walsall before and is now doing at Cheltenham. We spent 5 years money in 4 years pandering to his narcissism. I wonder if the Robbie Williams president thing was a desperate attempt to get Robbie to put some money in by smoozing him but it failed.

[sandyford_valiant]

They’re all to blame as the reasons stated above and by fans last night. Flitcroft is the one who’s responsible for finding players and he’s failed massively this last month. We needed a left wing back with pace, we needed two strikers (more than ever once uche got ruled out) . We didn’t get either. You could say he’s had no money from Carol to go out and get these players so why not find another youngster that would’ve been better than nothing.  He seemed so stubborn at that meeting when the relegation question was asked I think he genuinely thinks we aren’t in trouble. Every fan in the ground can see we are and Carol must see that?

who in the right mind would think Ryan loft and James Wilson (be injured soon) will lead us to safety? 
 

shes not going to get rid of Flitcroft right now but surely Crosby will have to go and now. Just to give us slight hope of a new approach and a few wins in the remaining 19 games. Everyone at the club seems to have took their eye off the product on the pitch once again and this time it could well end in a relegation. Then what happens ? Back in the chip shop league with 150 away fans every week and 4,000 home. We will lose thousands and thousands. Surely splashing a bit in January and keep us up is better than going down and losing an hell of a lot more. I just feel something is very wrong at the club right now. Very worried 

[Rockape99]

1 minute ago, Rampant Zebra said:

Flitcroft is to blame for me. He paid for Clarke to come and wreck the place like he did with Bristol Rovers and Walsall before and is now doing at Cheltenham. We spent 5 years money in 4 years pandering to his narcissism. I wonder if the Robbie Williams president thing was a desperate attempt to get Robbie to put some money in by smoozing him but it failed.

I honestly believe there are no wrong answers with that or what anyone else has said .Flitcroft is a bad thing for Vale 

[valiant steve]

AC, nice guy, good coach. Clearly not backed or supported effectively by the people in the background responsible for formulating budgets, attracting and recruiting players, carrying out medicals on prospective new signings, etc... I feel sorry for him, he clearly cares and has been let down by others. 

DF, good at spending (wasting) other people's money. Talks a good game. I'm not a fan of his, but he didn't appoint himself!

CS, has made some mistakes and, with each passing week, those mistakes are becoming more and more obvious. She needs to make the necessary changes to the "football" part of our football club if we're going to improve.

I think changing the manager would give us the best possible chance of staying up this season, but it would only (at best) paper over the cracks.

The philosophy that DF has sold to CS is floored. Becoming a nursery/creche facility for bigger clubs, nurturing their young players, has very little benefit for our club. 

AC clearly has the ability to develop young players and create a team that is capable of playing good football. If we want to go down that route, he is the man to do that job long term, but it needs to be done with our own young players (Plant, Shorrock, Dipepa, Lomax, Walters, etc...) and we need a solid spine of established, experienced League 1 players to support that process. We currently only have Ripley, OJ and Garrity who are genuinely of the required quality needed. (We bizarrely let David Worrall go, he was undoubtedly the required quality too)

The vast majority of Vale fans saw DF as the problem a long time ago. How long will it be before Carol sees it?

If we change manager (to someone like Ainsworth, for example) we may just get enough "New Manager Bounce" effect to avoid relegation, but if we don't move away from the ideas and philosophies from the current DofF, it will at best be a temporary fix and we'll be in the same position (or worse) this time next year. 

UTV!

[Raveninblack]

15 minutes ago, Rockape99 said:

I honestly believe there are no wrong answers with that or what anyone else has said .Flitcroft is a bad thing for Vale 

 in my opinion the Robbie thing wa a publicity stunt to open the Robbie Williams stand which they can’t afford to finish 

they have openly stated that they don’t want investment from him but Donaldson has given them an interest free loan for the stadium which they have to pay back and if we get relegated, which currently seems highly likely then we will lose revenue through the probable loss of season ticket sales and television rights

 

the manager has to be replaced when his contract runs out at the end of the season and Flitcroft and his cohorts..David Dunn have to be removed as well but the owners don’t see this like regular fans and Tuesday night and Saturday will be awful

[Bimbleabout]

In this order
Flitcroft
Flitcroft
Flitcroft

He's in charge of all things football. He's been employed by someone who has openly stated they know nothing about football to oversee 'all things football'
Carol is way too reliant and trusting of him .
AC is the fall guy, but hasn't helped himself at all by being tactically inept time after time. However player wise he can only deal with what he has player wise and injury wise. A different manager would get a better turn out of this squad, that's now more than apparent.
I'd like to know what happened with Alfie and Ollie as it doesn't add up that their loans are recalled and then rapidly ferried out to other clubs. Something isn't right their and it seems their parent clubs couldn't get them away quick enough.
I desperately wanted big Andy to succeed but it's obvious he needs to be replaced. Lose these games in hand and that's it for us.
Flitcroft needs to go at the end of the season, regardless of anything.
Big big decisions for Carol and Kevin. Time to put what's happening on the pitch first now.
I watched the game yesterday full of positivity at the start. But after 10 mins I was completely emotionless and devoid of anything, just like the players on the pitch.
If we get relegated it's not the end of the world, however it's a complete failing by Flitcroft and the ultimate evidence that he has to go and everything about him is bollox, regardless of the promotion winning season, because that points to extreme fluke and punching well above our weight and that Flitcroft has got it all very very wrong and is totally out of his depth.
His arrogance is detrimental and embarrassing at the moment to all things Vale .