Who’s to blame?

[SJD]

It’s quiet simple who’s to blame in my eyes and it’s the current owners of the club, as simple as that. For whatever reason they have decided to spend money on anywhere other than the playing squad. Add that to the appointment of an egotistical DoF who appears to have freehand in the ongoing chaos in the playing staff, youth team, style of play forced on both players and fans. He’s turned us into a nursery club for higher placed teams to blood their youngsters into league football at our clubs expense. We now have a revolving main entrance for young hopefuls from bigger clubs to test the water at the expense of our own core squad. At the same time we’re selling off our own young lads!!!! Really feel like Vale have no identity anymore.

[Packmoor_vale]

22 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

Don't remember that - who was the player?

I remember the Darren beckford buckets outside the ground 

Think I was still in the junior valiants team then 

[Jacko51]

20 minutes ago, Packmoor_vale said:

I remember the Darren beckford buckets outside the ground 

Think I was still in the junior valiants team then 

It was a huge raffle that raised £15k, not £27k and it was indeed spent on Darren Beckford. 

[nodge]

8 hours ago, Rockape99 said:

If I was Carol before acting i would  get Kevin and have a cuppa with JR and seek his counsel . JR will always put vale and football side 1st .

100%, having a sit down with Rudgie to get his honest thoughts should be her first meeting tomorrow

[Playa Amodores]

The fans, for having unrealistic expectations.

[Tamworth]

 

As has been mentioned, there's plenty of blame to go around here.

The DOF is a charlatan and if he's still here at the end of the Season then I for one will be speechless. We simply don't have a competitive squad. 

Crosby is completely out of his depth as Manager, even acknowledging the weakened bench courtesy of Flitcroft and Carol, his selections and in-game strategy make no sense, as yesterday's events demonstrate.

That said, ultimately Carol and familly have to take responsibility for their funding priorities , for the hiring of the DOF and jointly with the DOF, for the Manager. As to the funding choices, when you are bumping along at the bottom of the Division, you simply can't be spending big on infrastructure as we presently are. Also, you don't have to be a footballing genius to know that relying on loaners and everyone else's cast-offs is a very high risk strategy, one that is clearly killing us this season.

It's hard to see how we could be in a worse situaton on the pitch and I'd gladly trade the posh facilities we've put in place for the prawn cocktail brigade for some attention to what should be everyone's priority.

 

[pete vale]

2 hours ago, SJD said:

It’s quiet simple who’s to blame in my eyes and it’s the current owners of the club, as simple as that. For whatever reason they have decided to spend money on anywhere other than the playing squad. Add that to the appointment of an egotistical DoF who appears to have freehand in the ongoing chaos in the playing staff, youth team, style of play forced on both players and fans. He’s turned us into a nursery club for higher placed teams to blood their youngsters into league football at our clubs expense. We now have a revolving main entrance for young hopefuls from bigger clubs to test the water at the expense of our own core squad. At the same time we’re selling off our own young lads!!!! Really feel like Vale have no identity anymore.

"All fur coat and no knickers" Vale have lost touch with x2 critical things: 1) The game itself and 2) the core supporters

It won't end well for any of us. Crosby will most likely be gone tomorrow after DF and Carol (who doesn't read online media now) get wind of the fan unrest.

Too little - too late. Shambles. A different kind of shambles to what we have known - but a shambles non the less.

It will be toxic Tuesday.

[JohnJames]

44 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

It was a huge raffle that raised £15k, not £27k and it was indeed spent on Darren Beckford. 

If I recall there was about 2300 of us every week. You could get from the Huntsman to inside the Bycars within 5 minutes. Didn’t the club match the funds raised? 

[Jacko51]

54 minutes ago, JohnJames said:

If I recall there was about 2300 of us every week. You could get from the Huntsman to inside the Bycars within 5 minutes. Didn’t the club match the funds raised? 

My better half was the named promoter of the raffle. We had 20,000 tickets printed then discovered for the type of raffle we were only allowed to sell 10,000. Billy Bell wanted to carry on and sell the lot but as my better half was the promoter he would have been the one arrested!  So we took 10,000 tickets from the Vale and hid them under our bed!!

[NellyTheValiant]

23 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

My better half was the named promoter of the raffle. We had 20,000 tickets printed then discovered for the type of raffle we were only allowed to sell 10,000. Billy Bell wanted to carry on and sell the lot but as my better half was the promoter he would have been the one arrested!  So we took 10,000 tickets from the Vale and hid them under our bed!!

Did you win?

[Biddulph_PV]

5 hours ago, JoeB2 said:

Cannot believe how thick I've been.

Long been a sceptic of Flitcroft and his BS but decided to force positivity over the Christmas period - spent time listening to interviews and wanted to give this plan chance to play out.

Dunno what came over me.

We've won 3 in 21, 11 in 49. The worst team to spend the entirety of 2023 in League 1.

We have no recruitment strategy - in the summer, it was physicality, then we became a possession team. They panic on deadline day every year and end up with tat. We can't even research why the CB from Liverpool wasn't playing at Aberdeen. We set public targets and fail to meet them.

Two stands don't have working toilets, but the club is in no rush to sort them - letting pensioners use portaloos in the middle of winter. Meanwhile, if you've got a spare few quid and are in the club's good books, you can hobnob with pop stars in a new hospitality suite which must have cost hundreds of thousands. No open invite - special few only!

There's a deep resentment between the hierarchy and the fans. I genuinely don't think they have a lot of time or respect for us. Now, we all know that Vale fans can be extremely daft at times, but they've been here for the last 100+ years and will continue to be so for the next 100. The relationship between player and fans is at a record low - in 2013, Hughes, Purse, Pope, Griff were all out in Burslem post-promotion. In 2022, the players were locked away in the Valiant Suite with the fans milling around closed pubs. 

Carol is being conned by a man with no recruitment experience. Look at Blackpool's Sporting Director - Head of Recruitment at Sheffield United, two major roles in recruitment at Aston Villa. Flitcroft hadn't even done work experience in recruitment and strategy, he just fancied a go at it and sweet-talked his way into a cracking gig where he faffs about part-time pretending he's Billy Beane, until he somehow lands a full-time role as things get worse than ever. 

There's only one person ultimately responsible, and ultimately able to sort it out. Carol. I've long believed she is a net positive for the football club, but right now she's approaching net negative - if she can't make the right decision and get the solution spot on.

Of course, we'll win Tuesday and some folk will pretend all is right. We're not going where we need to go, at all, whether we stay up this year or not.

I agree with some of that, not necessarily all. Not sure there’s deep resentment around developments off the pitch. Remember the absolute sh!tshow Smirthwaite left, years of under-investment and crumbling, virtually non-existent in some cases, infrastructure. 

Maybe I’m being naive but I don’t think you can argue too much about developments there, attracting / schmoozing corporate clients is unfortunately the main way to subsidise ‘Average Joe’ (not referring to you btw!) on the Paddock.

Because so much needed doing around the place, it has allowed Flitcroft to create his own little fiefdom and as a result you can’t help but think he is taking home a decent amount of money for his ‘wisdom’. I’d love some comment on his transfer record, 50+ plus transfers and comfortably 3/4rs have been average to absolute <ovf censored> I’d say. 

Crosby is hopelessly out of his depth as a manager and simply a ‘yes’ man.

The buck absolutely stops at the top but I, and from what I heard a decent portion of the hapless 1,100 at Fleetwood, know who the problem is.

I hoping Carol is suffering from sort of ‘gamblers fallacy’ in that she’s invested so heavily in Flitcroft that she’s praying he eventually comes good, rather than it being anything more sinister. 

That said, with the bizarre Robbie Williams ‘President’ nonsense, Tommy Mac signing for Burnley, rumours about Williams “injury”, Walters apparently having signed for Stoke, not to mention another set of bogs out of order, literally nothing surprises me anymore.

Whatever is the truth, I fear we are goosed this season. For JJ Hooper read Ryan Loft.

[JoeB2]

The only reason we don't get an announcement at 9am tomorrow is sunk-cost fallacy.

The club hierarchy have put too much time, energy, money, and ego into Crosby and the model working. They'd all, to put it bluntly, look really stupid.

An admittance of failure would lead to uncomfortable finger-pointing, so best ride it out and hope we cobble together the points to finish 20th. Dave Flitcroft's job is the most important thing, here.

[Santa]

6 minutes ago, NellyTheValiant said:

Did you win?

The last raffle I was at was very interesting, because the people who ran the raffle, actually won it!

 

 

So it's not unusual for that to happen, now and again.

[JoeB2]

10 minutes ago, Biddulph_PV said:

I agree with some of that, not necessarily all. Not sure there’s deep resentment around developments off the pitch. Remember the absolute sh!tshow Smirthwaite left, years of under-investment and crumbling, virtually non-existent in some cases, infrastructure. 

By resentment, I just don't think the hierarchy have a very positive view of the fans. 

[Howjy04]

Averaging one manager every year for the last ten is the reason we are now struggling.You can’t keep changing managers and expect to be challenging every season.Who has the final say about sacking the manager at the club?My advice,for what it’s worth,is for the Owner ,D of F and Manager is to sit in room together with Rudgie and to get some guidance.If they aren’t prepared to and think they know it all,then ***k ‘em.My dad was a fantastic business man but that was after years of asking the questions and taking advice when needed.UTV.