2 hours ago, SS Vale said:

What are you trying to prove on here? 

Stop feeding the troll. 

Our biggest issue is we are a workhorse with no flair at all. That’s why fans go silent , it’s not intentional it’s a knowing nervousness. Can have all the strikers in the world but if you can’t engineer chances for then they will struggle to score. That’s what we need to find in Jan in my opinion, someone to link it all together. Someone who can turn defence into attack. Maybe that’s Byers but at the min I’m not sure we can count on him to stay fit. 
 

Disappointing yesterday but hardly as bad as some are suggesting. Yes the football was turgid but you would think that we were totally outplayed for 90 minutes when in reality it was a tight game in horrific conditions. One teams chance luckily dropped in and one teams chance luckily blocked. That was about it. I do agree tho that improvements need to be made in the offensive play I think we can all see that.  
 

Over to Moore to find the answer to that conundrum. 
 

Finally not sure where this best squad in the league is coming from either… we may have spent money but I think we are getting carried away a bit. Tolaj - unproven, Paton- unproven, John -unproven, The rest have mainly played at this level. The only real big exception is Byers and maybe Curtis but he was at this level last season. Stockley is coming to the end of his career and has played mainly at this level. We have good players and some experienced players for this level but best squad in the league finishes top in May simple as that for me. The rest is just paper talk. 

4 minutes ago, dantheman said:

Stop feeding the troll. 

Our biggest issue is we are a workhorse with no flair at all. That’s why fans go silent , it’s not intentional it’s a knowing nervousness. Can have all the strikers in the world but if you can’t engineer chances for then they will struggle to score. That’s what we need to find in Jan in my opinion, someone to link it all together. Someone who can turn defence into attack. Maybe that’s Byers but at the min I’m not sure we can count on him to stay fit. 
 

Disappointing yesterday but hardly as bad as some are suggesting. Yes the football was turgid but you would think that we were totally outplayed for 90 minutes when in reality it was a tight game in horrific conditions. One teams chance luckily dropped in and one teams chance luckily blocked. That was about it. I do agree tho that improvements need to be made in the offensive play I think we can all see that.  
 

Over to Moore to find the answer to that conundrum. 
 

Finally not sure where this best squad in the league is coming from either… we may have spent money but I think we are getting carried away a bit. Tolaj - unproven, Paton- unproven, John -unproven, The rest have mainly played at this level. The only real big exception is Byers and maybe Curtis but he was at this level last season. Stockley is coming to the end of his career and has played mainly at this level. We have good players and some experienced players for this level but best squad in the league finishes top in May simple as that for me. The rest is just paper talk. 

That’s a great post mate 👍🏻 

I could see what DM was trying to do yesterday with that team but he has us treading water atm while we are waiting for our midfield to get back to where it was before the injuries. 

Too some extent the players have been carrying DM up until the injuries. Now they are being suppressed to an extent, while we wait, and the tactical inabilities shine thru. 

A different change in set up, more attacking in focus should be employed in my opinion, until they come back.

The  constant chopping and changing isn't allowing solid link up play and bonds to develop properly,thats more than apparent with the amount of goals scored,constant misplaced passes, hoofing, losing possession all the time thru throw ins etc etc 

Its a blip and I'm sure we will get back on track. 

Hopefully it starts at Bromley. We need a victory and soon. They are in form and we are way out of form atm. The margins are too fine to try and nick a 1 niller constantly and it needs to be mixed up. 

Let them off the lead Dazzer. Supporters will except a narrow loss if we have plenty of chances, but not if its Mooreball. We look clueless in the final third atm. Way too much dithering and over thinking and far to cautious atm. 

UTV 💪 

45 minutes ago, dantheman said:

Stop feeding the troll. 

Our biggest issue is we are a workhorse with no flair at all. That’s why fans go silent , it’s not intentional it’s a knowing nervousness. Can have all the strikers in the world but if you can’t engineer chances for then they will struggle to score. That’s what we need to find in Jan in my opinion, someone to link it all together. Someone who can turn defence into attack. Maybe that’s Byers but at the min I’m not sure we can count on him to stay fit. 
 

Disappointing yesterday but hardly as bad as some are suggesting. Yes the football was turgid but you would think that we were totally outplayed for 90 minutes when in reality it was a tight game in horrific conditions. One teams chance luckily dropped in and one teams chance luckily blocked. That was about it. I do agree tho that improvements need to be made in the offensive play I think we can all see that.  
 

Over to Moore to find the answer to that conundrum. 
 

Finally not sure where this best squad in the league is coming from either… we may have spent money but I think we are getting carried away a bit. Tolaj - unproven, Paton- unproven, John -unproven, The rest have mainly played at this level. The only real big exception is Byers and maybe Curtis but he was at this level last season. Stockley is coming to the end of his career and has played mainly at this level. We have good players and some experienced players for this level but best squad in the league finishes top in May simple as that for me. The rest is just paper talk. 

Spot on

We’ve been winning games this season by very fine (sometimes lucky) margins. It doesnt take a massive swing to start losing game by fine (sometimes unlucky) margins. Has anyone actually thought we have looked and performed like a top of a table team for more than just short spells? It often felt like we were watching a mid table league 2 game. I said before and my opinion hasnt changed. We will have to rely on having a good squad with more depth than most, because i dont have any faith in the manager beyond that. We have all four of our strikers fit, and he played none of them for a home game, and then had to resort to panic tactics by bringing three on when they scored. Constant changes, with players getting bombed out of and into the squad on a whim. No settled side, not even in defence. Its bizarre. 

48 minutes ago, VTID-New said:

That’s a great post mate 👍🏻 

Cheers mate. We can only post what we see and football is for all its faults is wonderfully about opinions. 
 

UT BLOODY V!! 😂

1 hour ago, dantheman said:

Stop feeding the troll. 

Our biggest issue is we are a workhorse with no flair at all. That’s why fans go silent , it’s not intentional it’s a knowing nervousness. Can have all the strikers in the world but if you can’t engineer chances for then they will struggle to score. That’s what we need to find in Jan in my opinion, someone to link it all together. Someone who can turn defence into attack. Maybe that’s Byers but at the min I’m not sure we can count on him to stay fit. 
 

Disappointing yesterday but hardly as bad as some are suggesting. Yes the football was turgid but you would think that we were totally outplayed for 90 minutes when in reality it was a tight game in horrific conditions. One teams chance luckily dropped in and one teams chance luckily blocked. That was about it. I do agree tho that improvements need to be made in the offensive play I think we can all see that.  
 

Over to Moore to find the answer to that conundrum. 
 

Finally not sure where this best squad in the league is coming from either… we may have spent money but I think we are getting carried away a bit. Tolaj - unproven, Paton- unproven, John -unproven, The rest have mainly played at this level. The only real big exception is Byers and maybe Curtis but he was at this level last season. Stockley is coming to the end of his career and has played mainly at this level. We have good players and some experienced players for this level but best squad in the league finishes top in May simple as that for me. The rest is just paper talk. 

Well said, we will bounce back & I believe we will win automatic promotion ( still deep down thinker will be champions). Yes we need to knuckle down & sort ourselves out but we will I am sure! 👍 

The better team won. Walsall impressed me. They completely nullified us for the majority of that game. Their front two and midfield didn’t let us get up the pitch, especially second half. 

As for us, we didn’t look like a top of the table team. We created one chance. As I said on Tuesday, the majority of our games are none events and decided by small margins. If we continue to play in this manner we are going to lose a lot more games 1-0.

Another concern, if Stockley doesn’t play or has a bad game (he’s been poor for weeks now) then the whole team suffers. The midfield and defence looked clueless going forward. Our great run of form coincided with Stockley coming in to the team and playing well. 

Stockport won 2 in 8 from the end of November to January last season. They then had a second run of 1 win in 7 from February to March. Overall, it was a run of 6 wins in 20. Went up as Champions.

Wrexham. 4 defeats in 6 from end of December to February. Another run of 4 wins in 10 from February to April. Overall a run of 8 wins in 18. Went up

Mansfield. 4 defeats in 7 from March to April. Went up.

We're nowhere near crisis point yet. 1 win, 2 draws, 2 defeat in 5. Of that 5:

- two was against the current 1st and 4th (and one of those we played a half with 10 men). We were minutes from beating Crewe and inches from, undeservedly, Stockley nicking us a point against Walsall

- One was a draw away at a Cheltenham side who have just draw at 3rd place Doncaster and have lost 1 in 8

- Gillingham was a bad day where we had a penalty not given and Stockley missed a tap in

Performances are bad but that was always going to happen after the run we were on - as evidenced by last season, even brilliant teams have really poor runs. This run is a lot of narrow margin stuff - if Cover closes his man down at Crewe, we get given Curtis' penalty at Gills, and if Stockley's shot goes a few inches either side, it's a very different picture. Eventually you'll face a bit of bad luck combined with iffy performances.

Byers is back. Garrity isn't far behind. January window 4 games away. We're in a position we all would have loved pre-season - this team has proven they've got something.

16 minutes ago, SuperHuman said:

The better team won. Walsall impressed me. They completely nullified us for the majority of that game. Their front two and midfield didn’t let us get up the pitch, especially second half. 

As for us, we didn’t look like a top of the table team. We created one chance. As I said on Tuesday, the majority of our games are none events and decided by small margins. If we continue to play in this manner we are going to lose a lot more games 1-0.

Another concern, if Stockley doesn’t play or has a bad game (he’s been poor for weeks now) then the whole team suffers. The midfield and defence looked clueless going forward. Our great run of form coincided with Stockley coming in to the team and playing well. 

I don’t think Walsall were that good but they didn’t have to be either which is a worry. Garrity is the missing link, we are missing his engine & leadership right now. All that being said we need to do the basics right. Struggling to string a few passes at the moment but I have faith we will improve. Sooner rather than later would be nice! 

3 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Stockport won 2 in 8 from the end of November to January last season. They then had a second run of 1 win in 7 from February to March. Overall, it was a run of 6 wins in 20. Went up as Champions.

Wrexham. 4 defeats in 6 from end of December to February. Another run of 4 wins in 10 from February to April. Overall a run of 8 wins in 18. Went up

Mansfield. 4 defeats in 7 from March to April. Went up.

We're nowhere near crisis point yet. 1 win, 2 draws, 2 defeat in 5. Of that 5:

- two was against the current 1st and 4th (and one of those we played a half with 10 men). We were minutes from beating Crewe and inches from, undeservedly, Stockley nicking us a point against Walsall

- One was a draw away at a Cheltenham side who have just draw at 3rd place Doncaster and have lost 1 in 8

- Gillingham was a bad day where we had a penalty not given and Stockley missed a tap in

Performances are bad but that was always going to happen after the run we were on - as evidenced by last season, even brilliant teams have really poor runs. This run is a lot of narrow margin stuff - if Cover closes his man down at Crewe, we get given Curtis' penalty at Gills, and if Stockley's shot goes a few inches either side, it's a very different picture. Eventually you'll face a bit of bad luck combined with iffy performances.

Byers is back. Garrity isn't far behind. January window 4 games away. We're in a position we all would have loved pre-season - this team has proven they've got something.

This 👌🏻 

1 hour ago, dantheman said:

Stop feeding the troll. 

Our biggest issue is we are a workhorse with no flair at all. That’s why fans go silent , it’s not intentional it’s a knowing nervousness. Can have all the strikers in the world but if you can’t engineer chances for then they will struggle to score. That’s what we need to find in Jan in my opinion, someone to link it all together. Someone who can turn defence into attack. Maybe that’s Byers but at the min I’m not sure we can count on him to stay fit. 
 

Disappointing yesterday but hardly as bad as some are suggesting. Yes the football was turgid but you would think that we were totally outplayed for 90 minutes when in reality it was a tight game in horrific conditions. One teams chance luckily dropped in and one teams chance luckily blocked. That was about it. I do agree tho that improvements need to be made in the offensive play I think we can all see that.  
 

Over to Moore to find the answer to that conundrum. 
 

Finally not sure where this best squad in the league is coming from either… we may have spent money but I think we are getting carried away a bit. Tolaj - unproven, Paton- unproven, John -unproven, The rest have mainly played at this level. The only real big exception is Byers and maybe Curtis but he was at this level last season. Stockley is coming to the end of his career and has played mainly at this level. We have good players and some experienced players for this level but best squad in the league finishes top in May simple as that for me. The rest is just paper talk. 

Turgid is the correct description.  In fairness, we have a lot of tryers, but desperately need some added flair. It's difficult to over criticise DM as we're still in the top three and at this pointin the season,  I for one will take that!  However, if we are totally honest, we've been 'limping' to 1-0 victories for too many games and although each of those 3 points were very welcome  It could hardly be described as eye-catching and pulse-increasing football. Let's hope we can soon get back to a September-type winning run. UTV!

Also, without Stockley, I’m not sure the other strikers are good enough.

Tolaj and Paton have hardly proved that they should be starting. Hackford is a 4th choice striker who’s clearly not ready. This is why Moore went with Curtis upfront. 

Other than free kicks, Paton hasn’t looked like a goal threat once. 

I'm not a pro footballer or sports person and at 62 I expect that ship has sailed but know what it is like to be in a large squad to choose from. I was one for everyone getting a game so was happy to be in and out of side as we all worked during the week and just wanted to play. This is very much different at Vale. All the players could be buying into "What's best for the team and game approach" but wonder if this is not the case. If I was a Vale player or any player I would want to be in the side if my performances warranted it. In the system that now exists, players know that regardless of how they play they are not in the team or out on form but suitability to the game. Players are playing then not even in the squad the next game. To me, it takes that sharpness of mind and body to play well as it doesn't guarantee a place next game. Could be miles out on this but think how you would feel.

1 hour ago, JohnDoe said:

We’ve been winning games this season by very fine (sometimes lucky) margins. It doesnt take a massive swing to start losing game by fine (sometimes unlucky) margins. Has anyone actually thought we have looked and performed like a top of a table team for more than just short spells? It often felt like we were watching a mid table league 2 game. I said before and my opinion hasnt changed. We will have to rely on having a good squad with more depth than most, because i dont have any faith in the manager beyond that. We have all four of our strikers fit, and he played none of them for a home game, and then had to resort to panic tactics by bringing three on when they scored. Constant changes, with players getting bombed out of and into the squad on a whim. No settled side, not even in defence. Its bizarre. 

Spot on. Had we not won at County and MKD, 2 games that we rode our luck and came away with narrow wins then the supporters would be on his back. Had we won 1-0 against Crewe and 1-0 yesterday, the fans would be chanting his name. It is very fine margins, but that is what you get when you se your play out to be negative and limit chances for both teams. If we were Morecambe I’d be saying, spot on tactics but we aren’t, we have one of the strongest squads if not the strongest squad in what is a naff division- if we go up playing this way then great, if we don’t the it is a massive opportunity and investment wasted.