4 minutes ago, Walka003 said:

Shorrock played for the academy today against chesterfield. 

It will be interesting to see how many games he plays for us this season as at the moment in time I can see him playing more games for the academy rather than the first team.

Just now, ValiantHan said:

It will be interesting to see how many games he plays for us this season as at the moment in time I can see him playing more games for the academy rather than the first team.

He's still very young. Plenty of time for him to come back into the fold later down the line if he does drop back in with the academy for a bit.

17 minutes ago, ValiantHan said:

I think Sam Hart will leave and Ben Lomax will go out on loan but for me it will be interesting to see what we do with Shorrock as he hasn't made any of the matchday squad's apart from the League Cup games. 

I suggest we may see a few more than that and more senior players too.

It’s that old question, how long do you leave it for players to show they capable to play at a higher level before changing it?

Leave it to Jan and it’s a lot more difficult to put it right.

5 minutes ago, NW9Valiant said:

I'd actually be tempted to say return Faal to be quite honest.

I know he's only played a few games but I agree with you in regards to Faal as for me he hasn't offered much and didn't have a great game today. I would play Ruari and see what he can do in L1. 

Edited August 30, 2025Aug 30 by ValiantHan

1 minute ago, ValiantHan said:

I know he's only played a few games but I agree with you in regards to Faal as I would play Ruari instead to see what he can do in L1. 

Faal looked disinterested today to be fair to him I think generally he’s looked ok. I think we have to bear in mind he is effectively a cheap Stockley backup.

The more I look at our squad the more I think we should play predominantly with 3 up front, with a 3 or 4 at the back.

11 minutes ago, MBE said:

Faal looked disinterested today to be fair to him I think generally he’s looked ok. I think we have to bear in mind he is effectively a cheap Stockley backup.

The more I look at our squad the more I think we should play predominantly with 3 up front, with a 3 or 4 at the back.

Tbh I think Faal would be better coming off the bench rather than starting the game and I thought he was unlucky to not score 2 goals against Birmingham. 

After today's result I can definitely see us going back to the 343 formation and I think we would look much better with 3 up front. 

Same as last season we are totally toothless without Stockley and he’s imperative to how we play… the fact we don’t have an adequate back up that we all called in the summer is madness. Ollie Palmer would have been perfect in that aspect.

Now Marcus Forss would be a good signing and I think he would have been at West Brom at the same time as DM. DM was at West Brom from 2012 to 2019 and Forss was at West Brom as a youth player from 2012-2017 so he would definitely have known DM.

 

Edited August 30, 2025Aug 30 by ValiantHan

6 minutes ago, ValiantHan said:

Now Marcus Forss would be a good signing and I think he would have been at West Brom at the same time as DM. DM was at West Brom from 2012 to 2019 and Forss was at West Brom as a youth player from 2012-2017 so he would definitely have known DM.

 

This would be a blockbuster signing.

I suspect more likely to be a club paying much higher wages than us like a Bolton.

I would absolutely love it though if DM pulled a couple of huge signings like this to shut up all the knobheads who are absolutely vile on line at the moment towards Carol.

Its unwarranted some of the nasty comments especially when the transfer window isn’t even closed yet.

Too many Vale fans with scars and PTSD.

Realistically all of these players are potentials to be sold in this or Jan window as contracts are expiring.

A lot of senior players there.

Edited August 30, 2025Aug 30 by MBE

7 minutes ago, MBE said:

This would be a blockbuster signing.

I suspect more likely to be a club paying much higher wages than us like a Bolton.

I would absolutely love it though if DM pulled a couple of huge signings like this to shut up all the knobheads who are absolutely vile on line at the moment towards Carol.

Its unwarranted some of the nasty comments especially when the transfer window isn’t even closed yet.

Too many Vale fans with scars and PTSD.

This would be a fabulous signing IMO.

Yeah, I suspect he will go elsewhere but he would definitely know DM due to them both being at West Brom at the same time. If I were to guess I reckon he will end up at either Luton, Huddersfield, Bolton or Cardiff.  

These nasty comments are unwarranted and I know we are frustrated at the results but there is no need to take it out on Carol. 

We won’t be signing anymore strikers before the window shuts. Moore has basically already said it during the week. What we have is what we have got until January. 

If we don't sign something else up front, it's clear that we haven't learnt any lessons from 2 years ago. We actually have better 'set up' players now but we can't rely on what we have.

Unfortunately, as seems so often over the last 25 years, we've tried to recruit the most important part of the team, the forwards, on the cheap. The exception was last year when we paid money for Tolaj and Stockley and surprise, surprise it worked!

Faal is a 20 minute substitute at best to cause a bit of chaos, Mansfield fans told us that Waine was nowhere near this level...if I can ascertain this from an online forum, then our recruitment team surely can?

I like Curtis but he hasn't got a strikers instinct and doesn't get into easy positions to score...it's not his fault...he's a winger. Stockley would be fine, but he picks up niggles regularly and isn't getting younger.

The Tolaj sale has of course added a fly in the ointment but we needed a quality addition to the forward line before this. A like for like replacement for Stockley as a minimum.

Feels like we've wasted some of the budget on things that weren't needed. We surely don't need so many wingbacks? What was the point of signing Rico because he doesn't fit into the formation we want to play? Why have we got 3 x 1st team goalkeepers?

If we're honest with ourselves, the only signing to truly improve the first team has been Humphreys so far, and at a push Gordon. We needed to improve more...we've learnt before that the step up in league is bigger than we think. We didn't need more squad filler.

54 minutes ago, TreacleValiant said:

We won’t be signing anymore strikers before the window shuts. Moore has basically already said it during the week. What we have is what we have got until January. 

No he hasn’t 

1 hour ago, ValiantHan said:

Now Marcus Forss would be a good signing and I think he would have been at West Brom at the same time as DM. DM was at West Brom from 2012 to 2019 and Forss was at West Brom as a youth player from 2012-2017 so he would definitely have known DM.

 

He’s signing for Bolton