Who’s to blame?

[Bimbleabout]

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!

Good post Steve

[Biddulph_PV]

Nothing else to say really that hasn’t already been said.

I thought early doors this season had the same feeling as the relegation season and at 11pm on 1 February those fears were crystallised. 

I’d love to know why we are wedded to 3-5-2 I really would. It is just crazy. Surely to God it must be easier to recruit players used to more orthodox systems??? How many WB’s are on the market?? How many footballing CB’s are there? 

I’m really struggling to think of any team that is successful playing this way. Liverpool, City, Arsenal don’t; Villa or Newcastle don’t; Leicester, Southampton or Leeds don’t; Portsmouth or Derby don’t??? So if it’s not deemed a sensible system for these teams, then why is it suitable for little old Port Vale with the budget a fraction of said teams?? It just utterly defies logic and is beyond mental to me. 

I’ve not attended since the Boro game and I ain’t going back anytime soon. Such my level of anger at such a half-arsed showing on a huge night for the club. I didn’t expect a win, but I expected us to make it uncomfortable for them & get in their faces and get the crowd up. We didn’t. 

This is my longest time away from attending games since I was at uni. A young family means there is more competition for my time. And what rational person would give up 4 hours of their Saturday, spending upwards of £30 in the process where the only guarantees at the moment are incredibly, not that I’ll at least be able to take a pee, but that I’ll come back even more angry & frustrated?? 😩 

You literally could not make it up. 

[valiant_593]

All 3, the longer this goes and the more at fault Carol is. She is the one letting this carry on. 

[Bimbleabout]

All 3, the longer this goes and the more at fault Carol is. She is the one letting this carry on. 

There is that. Carol has to make some pitch related decisions now. I'm sure it's a position she never wanted, or though she would ever be in having employed a DOF, but ultimately she is the one that makes the big calls.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Biddulph_PV said:

Nothing else to say really that hasn’t already been said.

I thought early doors this season had the same feeling as the relegation season and at 11pm on 1 February those fears were crystallised. 

I’d love to know why we are wedded to 3-5-2 I really would. It is just crazy. Surely to God it must be easier to recruit players used to more orthodox systems??? How many WB’s are on the market?? How many footballing CB’s are there? 

I’m really struggling to think of any team that is successful playing this way. Liverpool, City, Arsenal don’t; Villa or Newcastle don’t; Leicester, Southampton or Leeds don’t; Portsmouth or Derby don’t??? So if it’s not deemed a sensible system for these teams, then why is it suitable for little old Port Vale with the budget a fraction of said teams?? It just utterly defies logic and is beyond mental to me. 

I’ve not attended since the Boro game and I ain’t going back anytime soon. Such my level of anger at such a half-arsed showing on a huge night for the club. I didn’t expect a win, but I expected us to make it uncomfortable for them & get in their faces and get the crowd up. We didn’t. 

This is my longest time away from attending games since I was at uni. A young family means there is more competition for my time. And what rational person would give up 4 hours of their Saturday, spending upwards of £30 in the process where the only guarantees at the moment are incredibly, not that I’ll at least be able to take a pee, but that I’ll come back even more angry & frustrated?? 😩 

You literally could not make it up. 

Good post fella I felt like that on Feb 1st .

Life's too short spend time and money and HEART on something which is so poor 

Agree about boro game yesterday had ripped the HEART out of me and I watched it at home, how those like me nephew and others  who have been conned out of there money feel well I'd hate to think

Sad times again 

 

[CAVALIER]

One person is in charge of what goes on on the pitch. Our owner told us the process. That's it. End of.

One thing off the pitch to scrutinise, can't recall who's job that is, is the non-football staff. I'll chuck it out there. Do we need a media team ? What do they do? Videos of signings ( l bloody out l)? I follow several non league teams on Twitter and their outputs are much better . 
Waste of money, add in the DOF who's wages I guess doubled, several too many coaches and we've enough for several more loanees (even a permanent signing 😀). 

[DazFred]

Flitcroft

He has a poor background...look what happened to Bury.

Crosby will go and Flitcroft is so arrogant he will probably become manager and then we will probably be relegated.

 

[Sheffield Vale]

Simply put, the buck stops with them at the top. If Crosby isn't capable of performing in his position then it's on Flitcroft to do something about it. If Flitcroft is also incompetent and doing nothing it's on Carol.

Crosby - out of his depth with very poor tools and no prior experience in this situation.
Flitcroft - talks the talk but from the evidence we've seen, can't walk the walk.

Carol needs to step in and remove both, otherwise we'll be in League Two, with less money coming in and attendances down to 4,000 again. Sadly I can't see her doing so and fear we'll be relegated.

[philpvfc]

Flitcroft is the main culprit as to why the team has gone backwards since Jan 23, Crosby ain’t good enough and should never have his contract renewed at the end of the season, if he lasts that long but with Flitcroft in charge of the playing side we will just be the same as with whoever he decides to replace Crosby with. Carol should take some of the blame for giving  Flitcroft this much time to run the club down and most recently let him talk his way in to a pay rise by going full time, which probably meant a new contract, she has to make some big decisions now or all the hard work will be for nothing.

I don’t care if Crosby is sacked now, because I don’t think for one second Flitcroft will bring in anyone better, whoever he does bring in will have to put up with Flitcrofts way of running things and it will all be to save his own skin.

[George is here]

In probably 99% of cases, it start's at the top. IMO this is the case for us because it fell apart when we sold Hall and did not spend money to replace him with better quality when we were in the top 10 at the beginning of 2023. The owner's decision to virtually bring down the financial shutters on the playing side since has led to the rest of the disasterous jigsaw. We just about got away with it last season. This season?????

[Valiiant]

Everyone.

Carol. She's the one that has the final say in things. People need to stop bringing up what she did for the club in the past. She's received enough praise and gratitude for that already. She gets a lot wrong and seems to be far too loyal to her mates which is absolutely a fault.

Crosby. He's the one that puts out the same tired formation and tactics every week. He's the one responsible for awful team selections, like yesterday. Should never be managing a League One club, but he didn't appoint himself did he? 

Flitcroft. Talks a good enough game but blagged his way into a job role and now takes advantage of Carol's loyalty and kindness. His overall record in regards to players coming into the club has been a disaster with a few exceptions.

Players. Most of these have been pants and need to take responsibility for their own performances to an extent. When you manage to lose 3-0 to a team like Fleetwood, you have to stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself serious questions.

[Jacko51]

My one concern about sacking the manager is not that I think it won’t happen it’s what decent, experienced manager would want to work under our Director of Football?

[Guitar Ray]

3 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

My one concern about sacking the manager is not that I think it won’t happen it’s what decent, experienced manager would want to work under our Director of Football?

There would be plenty of applicants.  The major worry would be could we trust the DoF to select the right one.

[Rampant Zebra]

I have resigned myself to relegation now but I will still be gutted if it happens. 

[Guitar Ray]

Just now, Rampant Zebra said:

I have resigned myself to relegation now but I will still be gutted if it happens. 

There’s still plenty of time to turn things around if we take the appropriate action.  That’s not to say it’ll be easy, given the makeup of the squad.