4 hours ago, valiant_593 said:

I’m not sure Gauci was bought here as injury cover. He’s been signed to be the number 1. Quality keeper 

I don’t see how you can make that assessment so soon. He’s played 3 games for us, made 5 saves, conceded 3 goals. I agree, he looks better than Marosi who looks awful but still far too early to say he is a quality keeper. 
For me, he looks full of confidence, polar opposite to Marosi but will that be permanent? His passing has been poor and dwindled on the ball too long a few times including the incident at Birmingham which could easily have cost us a goal. 
People get criticised for writing players off after a few games- it works both ways, you can’t say a player is quality after a few games either, especially a goalkeeper who has conceded more than a third of  the shots on target. 

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by philpvfc

On 08/09/2025 at 10:08, robf said:

My worry having read this thread is that practically everyone has a different starting eleven. Which ones make the back three, which wingbacks do you select, who out of Croasdale, Walters, Byers and Ojo are the central midfield duo, what's the pairing upfront and so on...

I think this is an effect of the constant rotation and squad imbalance (i.e. so many wingbacks to select from, so many similar central midfielders, three goalies) that there's no common consensus on our best starting XI. We don't even know who the number one goalie is. Seven games into a season that's a concern...

IMHO for reasons I have outlined on earlier match threads is that our formation is predictable and easily outfoxed tactically.

We get very little attacking return on our wing-backs and suffer defensively because of the space left behind them.  Teams often pin them back with wide attackers, e.g. Koroma last Saturday. Because they are so wide we have to play 3 in the centre of the park to compete, which then denies us the ability to field a creative “10” and an alternative threat.  Meanwhile our 3 centre halves often mark each other, but get picked off by unmarked attacking midfielders. 

It’s all very reminiscent of 23-24.  You can’t set up like Man City if you don’t have the players to dominate possession.

I think I’m right in saying every game we’ve lost, we’ve lost by 1 goal. Should have beaten Stevenage, at least a draw against Orient, I’m sure we would have beaten Burton with 11 on the pitch, opener we should have got something and again 10 men. Those fine margins show we’re not far away. If we’d had Cole before Saturday I’m sure we’d be fine now, especially in really tight games like Cardiff. We’ll be fine but we have to learn to stay in a conservative shape. That was our default method of gaining points last season so surely we can get that tactic back on track. Stockley and Garrity will be game-changing differences too.

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by 1

1 hour ago, BlytheValiant said:

IMHO for reasons I have outlined on earlier match threads is that our formation is predictable and easily outfoxed tactically.

We get very little attacking return on our wing-backs and suffer defensively because of the space left behind them.  Teams often pin them back with wide attackers, e.g. Koroma last Saturday. Because they are so wide we have to play 3 in the centre of the park to compete, which then denies us the ability to field a creative “10” and an alternative threat.  Meanwhile our 3 centre halves often mark each other, but get picked off by unmarked attacking midfielders. 

It’s all very reminiscent of 23-24.  You can’t set up like Man City if you don’t have the players to dominate possession.

I totally agree about the wingbacks. It’s not right to expect them to do all the attacking and defending on the flanks. In L1 the space is easily exposed in a few passes. If Headley and Clark had a winger to team up with they’d be laughing but were too ‘evolved’ to sign or play a winger.

MUST WIN. Enough said.

10 minutes ago, 1 said:

I totally agree about the wingbacks. It’s not right to expect them to do all the attacking and defending on the flanks. In L1 the space is easily exposed in a few passes. If Headley and Clark had a winger to team up with they’d be laughing but were too ‘evolved’ to sign or play a winger.

Headley is a winger in my opinion. We've got enough in our squad to make it work. Gordon and Headley in the same team down the same side won us the game at Birmingham in my opinion.

30 minutes ago, bobbymanc said:

MUST WIN. Enough said.

Last sat was as well , tbf .

5 minutes ago, Nippy Naylor said:

Last sat was as well , tbf .

Get over it its happened. Were all vale aint we. 3:0 to the mighty valiants im going paton hatty 

2 minutes ago, Vale1995 said:

Get over it its happened. Were all vale aint we. 3:0 to the mighty valiants im going paton hatty 

Yep 👍 UTV

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by Nippy Naylor

2 hours ago, philpvfc said:

I agree but it is extremely rare we see 90 minutes of really good football, we either start really well then either tire or changes are made that make us worse or we start poorly and then improve immensely once changes are made. 

I think it's the nature of the league. Plenty of games will be back and forth with momentum. I also think whatever 11 we start with, our subs bench is stronger than I can remember, so you would hope that changes will make a positive impact much more often than not.

1 hour ago, bobbymanc said:

Headley is a winger in my opinion. We've got enough in our squad to make it work. Gordon and Headley in the same team down the same side won us the game at Birmingham in my opinion.

That’s what I want to see, those two playing together.

Any tips for parking guys and gals?  Don't mind a walk

3 hours ago, Vale1995 said:

Get over it its happened. Were all vale aint we. 3:0 to the mighty valiants im going paton hatty 

I just have a feeling that Ruari is going to score in this game.

Edited September 9, 2025Sep 9 by ValiantHan

Gauci had 8mins as a sub in New Zealand

3 hours ago, Loggerheads Sage said:

Any tips for parking guys and gals?  Don't mind a walk

When I went for the final game in 2022 I parked in one of the town centre car parks but they were rammed that day so took ages. That said obviously both sides had a sell out following that day!