1 hour ago, queenybantam07 said:

Not here to disagree or agree, but I’d be interested to understand your meh judgement in a bit more detail. 
 

CM - Max Power - captained Wigan and Sunderland - won L1 three times - Smallwoods replacement. 

CB - Joe Wright - Killie’s player of the year - solid L1 experience

CB: Curtis Tilt - Critchlow’s back-up - who will be squad player at best - won L1 with Wigan 

RWB - Josh Neufville - Wimbledon’s talisman for the past couple of seasons  -umpteen clubs tried to sign him  

LB - Ibou Touray - played 40+ games for Stockport last season - who finished third. Won L2 the season before. 

ST - Stephen Humphrys - very capable attacker at this level. 

CB - Matt Pennington - solid L1 defender, with 70 Champ appearances

No where near the finished article, but if we’re judging signings thus far in comparison to all those promoted from L2 last season, I think we’ve had the best window so far.

Game of opinions, however. 

 

Certainly signed plenty of experience.  Neufville is a good player.

1 hour ago, queenybantam07 said:

Not here to disagree or agree, but I’d be interested to understand your meh judgement in a bit more detail. 
 

CM - Max Power - captained Wigan and Sunderland - won L1 three times - Smallwoods replacement. 

CB - Joe Wright - Killie’s player of the year - solid L1 experience

CB: Curtis Tilt - Critchlow’s back-up - who will be squad player at best - won L1 with Wigan 

RWB - Josh Neufville - Wimbledon’s talisman for the past couple of seasons  -umpteen clubs tried to sign him  

LB - Ibou Touray - played 40+ games for Stockport last season - who finished third. Won L2 the season before. 

ST - Stephen Humphrys - very capable attacker at this level. 

CB - Matt Pennington - solid L1 defender, with 70 Champ appearances

No where near the finished article, but if we’re judging signings thus far in comparison to all those promoted from L2 last season, I think we’ve had the best window so far.

Game of opinions, however. 

 

Don't see how you can possibly go wrong signing a lad named Max Power. 

For what it's worth, I'm still glad that you pipped Walsall to 3rd spot in hilarious fashion.

4 hours ago, MBE said:

Humphreys 26

Shipley 27

Gordon 27

Gabriel 26

Rico 21 is the outlier but our signings are following a pattern. L1 experience players approaching the prime years.

Definition of a long term squad plan.

So all we need to do now is look at Free Agents with L1 experience 26 or 27 to guess our next signing😀

 

I think Gordon is actually 26.

We don't have many outfield players over 30 in our squad, I think 5. My guess is we'll go for one relatively experienced forward and probably a keeper. Other signings will probably be younger. He has the core of a solid bench and starting 11, so I'm not expecting a lot more experience through the door. There's a limit to the number of players we can keep happy.

7 hours ago, queenybantam07 said:

Not here to disagree or agree, but I’d be interested to understand your meh judgement in a bit more detail. 
 

CM - Max Power - captained Wigan and Sunderland - won L1 three times - Smallwoods replacement. 

CB - Joe Wright - Killie’s player of the year - solid L1 experience

CB: Curtis Tilt - Critchlow’s back-up - who will be squad player at best - won L1 with Wigan 

RWB - Josh Neufville - Wimbledon’s talisman for the past couple of seasons  -umpteen clubs tried to sign him  

LB - Ibou Touray - played 40+ games for Stockport last season - who finished third. Won L2 the season before. 

ST - Stephen Humphrys - very capable attacker at this level. 

CB - Matt Pennington - solid L1 defender, with 70 Champ appearances

No where near the finished article, but if we’re judging signings thus far in comparison to all those promoted from L2 last season, I think we’ve had the best window so far.

Game of opinions, however. 

 

You’re doing the classic fan thing of spinning every signing in a positive way with a few cliches like ‘solid’, ‘capable’ and ‘talisman’, without really knowing if they’re any good. To my eyes you’ve signed a lot of older players who haven’t recently been League 1 regulars.

You could very easily turn it in to:

Power - played 29 games in 2 years, wrong side of 30, been in Saudi Arabia and Denmark.

Wright - played for a team finishing 4th bottom of the Scottish League.

Tilt - 33 and not exactly a standout in League 2

Neufville - completely untested in League 1

Touray - released by Stockport, but the best signing and the only one who was a League 1 regular.

Humphreys - a forward who has hit double figures once, and that was 11, scraped 60% of minutes in a poor Barnsley side

Pennington - played 40% of minutes last season

You could easily spin it as signing a load of over-30s to big contracts, with only Touray a real regular at this level last season - he’s the only one he played more than 60% of League 1 minutes in 24/25.

You’re doing what every fan does, but it’s basically Alastair Campbell spin on every signing. About 50% of them won’t work out, based on historic averages.

”Having the best window” isn’t always the team who signs the highest number/most recognisable players - sometimes it’s the team who enjoy a lot of continuity and build on existing relationships.

The worshipping and spin of transfers as inherent goods simply must stop.

That’s not me saying your business has been poor - but spinning every signing as an unqualified success, instead of viewing it as what it is (squad-level League 1 players, mostly 30 or above, with Touray a standout), is why so many fans are impatient and demanding more these days. Their expectations are crackers.

Making judgements on transfer windows (Stevenage have WON the window! Wigan have LOST the window) is daft until we’re a few months in. None of us have a clue.

Edited June 26, 2025Jun 26 by JoeB2

I'm happy with our squad and our signings at the current time. It's already higher quality and more balanced. We have months to fill the few clear gaps remaining and I fully expect us to have some decent loan players who are able to make the grade added in there as well. If I was a betting person I'd say no way are we going to be near the bottom four and we could surprise a lot of teams by adopting the same tactical approach as this season just gone but with better depth.

22 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

You’re doing the classic fan thing of spinning every signing in a positive way with a few cliches like ‘solid’, ‘capable’ and ‘talisman’, without really knowing if they’re any good. To my eyes you’ve signed a lot of older players who haven’t recently been League 1 regulars.

You could very easily turn it in to:

Power - played 29 games in 2 years, wrong side of 30, been in Saudi Arabia and Denmark.

Wright - played for a team finishing 4th bottom of the Scottish League.

Tilt - 33 and not exactly a standout in League 2

Neufville - completely untested in League 1

Touray - released by Stockport, but the best signing and the only one who was a League 1 regular.

Humphreys - a forward who has hit double figures once, and that was 11, scraped 60% of minutes in a poor Barnsley side

Pennington - played 40% of minutes last season

You could easily spin it as signing a load of over-30s to big contracts, with only Touray a real regular at this level last season - he’s the only one he played more than 60% of League 1 minutes in 24/25.

You’re doing what every fan does, but it’s basically Alastair Campbell spin on every signing. About 50% of them won’t work out, based on historic averages.

”Having the best window” isn’t always the team who signs the highest number/most recognisable players - sometimes it’s the team who enjoy a lot of continuity and build on existing relationships.

The worshipping and spin of transfers as inherent goods simply must stop.

They’ll be ok Bradford this season and have made sensible signings but I think their squad was the one that needed major surgery out of the top 3 last season. Id be surprised if they went into next season with Andy Cook at 35 and coming back from an ACL as their best striking option. 

16 hours ago, darren1810 said:

What !!! 

Long ball my arse.

We mix it up. 

Played some lovely football at times and scored some great team goals.

Do we utilise Stockley, of course we do. But there's no way we can be classed a long ball team. 

Confidence and ball retention help each player play at the top of their game, improving their skill set and ability to win games. Confidence together we can build, 👊💥 keep believing,Up the Vale home and away ⚽🥇🏆

32 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

 None of us have a clue.

That should be the OVF mantra….. harsh but true. 
Made me smile anyway.

 

utv

7 hours ago, queenybantam07 said:

Not here to disagree or agree, but I’d be interested to understand your meh judgement in a bit more detail. 
 

CM - Max Power - captained Wigan and Sunderland - won L1 three times - Smallwoods replacement. 

CB - Joe Wright - Killie’s player of the year - solid L1 experience

CB: Curtis Tilt - Critchlow’s back-up - who will be squad player at best - won L1 with Wigan 

RWB - Josh Neufville - Wimbledon’s talisman for the past couple of seasons  -umpteen clubs tried to sign him  

LB - Ibou Touray - played 40+ games for Stockport last season - who finished third. Won L2 the season before. 

ST - Stephen Humphrys - very capable attacker at this level. 

CB - Matt Pennington - solid L1 defender, with 70 Champ appearances

No where near the finished article, but if we’re judging signings thus far in comparison to all those promoted from L2 last season, I think we’ve had the best window so far.

Game of opinions, however. 

 

I think Bradford have done what they needed to do and add experience from a higher level. I only saw them 3 times, twice against us and once against Crewe at their place and they looked remarkably easy to create chances against, I do think they needed quite a bit of work to give themselves a chance in league 1- possibly slightly more so than us and definitely more so than Donny.

Be interesting to see how they go, I think the step up in standard is a little bit harder to bridge than some supporters from all 3 teams imagine.

UTV

10 hours ago, MBE said:

Humphreys 26

Shipley 27

Gordon 27

Gabriel 26

Rico 21 is the outlier but our signings are following a pattern. L1 experience players approaching the prime years.

Definition of a long term squad plan.

So all we need to do now is look at Free Agents with L1 experience 26 or 27 to guess our next signing😀

 

I remember when we only had a team of oldies and youngsters, was Michael Brown manager, and obviously that awful owner?

I looked enviously at other clubs parading their prime level players in front of us.

Now, it seems, we're one of those clubs.

Now that's a measure of very significant progress.

I think we needed less work than the other three in this window as we signed players last summer and in January with League One in mind so did much of our big business 12 months ago, Curtis, Byers, Stockley, Headley had we signed this summer we'd be probably buzzing with.

I think Bradford and Vale will do better of the 4, Wimbledon will really struggle they've lost a lot of players and Doncaster are 50-50 at the minute.

8 hours ago, queenybantam07 said:

Not here to disagree or agree, but I’d be interested to understand your meh judgement in a bit more detail. 
 

CM - Max Power - captained Wigan and Sunderland - won L1 three times - Smallwoods replacement. 

CB - Joe Wright - Killie’s player of the year - solid L1 experience

CB: Curtis Tilt - Critchlow’s back-up - who will be squad player at best - won L1 with Wigan 

RWB - Josh Neufville - Wimbledon’s talisman for the past couple of seasons  -umpteen clubs tried to sign him  

LB - Ibou Touray - played 40+ games for Stockport last season - who finished third. Won L2 the season before. 

ST - Stephen Humphrys - very capable attacker at this level. 

CB - Matt Pennington - solid L1 defender, with 70 Champ appearances

No where near the finished article, but if we’re judging signings thus far in comparison to all those promoted from L2 last season, I think we’ve had the best window so far.

Game of opinions, however. 

 

No problem to disagree Queeny, time will tell.

Powers are long gone. 31 playing in the backwaters of India for 2 seasons. Big ask to pick up the pace of L1 again.

Wright - SPL is notorious, got lots of examples of players do well in SPL not as good in L1.

Tilt - should be nowhere nearer L1. Dodgy as in L2.

Neufville - Good player hope he makes the step up. One of the best WB’s in L2 last season.

Touray - Decent experience but another player on with age beginning with 3.

Humphrys- His record is meh.

Pennington - Class act.

When we came up last time we signed great experience, we had Massey and Ojo, promoted out of L1 with Wigan, wrong side of 29 like most of your experienced players you have signed. Dreadful signings.

I personally prefer our approach of experience with the age profile.

Love this pre-season links to players we are never going to attract here.  Then the no hopers sites say we are interested in.

Then we get the message - such and such is a Valiant.  They have never been mentioned as a possible target.

Can't wait to see the squad put together by DM and Co and the league started.

Mansfield fans think that they are getting into the play offs too with their signings