Port Vale v Fleetwood

[codaplenty]

Our 3rd successive away game and looking to get back to winning ways on the road. We really are up and down with our form but if we finish roughly where we are now come season end that will represent a big improvement on last year. We could come unstuck here so a draw will be a good day 1-1 and Devante Cole will get the goal !

 

[IanPVFC]

We really need a win to get us back on track after a dreadful run of form.

Unfortunately I think this game comes just a little too soon for Forrester and possibly Jones as well.

 

[valefan16]

Reckon Jones will start IMO.

Need a win, looking at Fleetwood Monday they look as shit going forward as we have lately so could be a classic 0-0 bore draw (like last season)!

Massively need a win though. Forrester starts I fancy us to get back in form but may not take the risk after last time.

 

[darren gregory]

yet to beat Fleetwood at VP, admittedly only played them 3 times .
However we are in the midst of an appalling run of form and our manager seems to have either lost his voice or done a ' Lord Lucan ' since the Sheff Utd massacre a month ago.
Tomorrow is crucial, win and we are remarkably still in the pot for 5th or 6th, the rest are way clear. Lose and i,m looking out for results involving Shrews, Chesterfield and Oldham.
I'll go for 1-1 with a frozen dire crowd of 3688 and zilch atmosphere.

 

[valefan16]

Alex Jones returns from injury and starts! Thank the lord!!!!

 

[valefan16]

To say the game lacks quality is an understatement.

 

[valefan16]

Referee missing the most obvious foul of the day and Fleetwood score furious!

 

[Monkey]

Big Reg equaliser

 

[valefan16]

Scenes at the end! Grant gets lamped and gets a second yellow! Comes back on to try and get to the referee! Furious and rightly so but he never gets like that so will be interesting to see if something was said .Referee gave us nothing and thankfully we managed to the overcome it! Big Reg!

 

[Monkey]

Really happy with the result. Sitting in 6th place.

Great to see Jones back as he certainly knows how to put it in the back of the net.

I'm sure Vale will appeal the second yellow for Grant.

 

[codaplenty]

Its not so much losing, its the fact that we cant hold on to a lead away from home, we have lost every away game 2-1 having been if front in 3 of them. Add in the fact that that lot up the road won and its a crap Saturday night. Btw no probs losing to Vale and wish them well

 

[MJA]

I'm sure Vale will appeal the second yellow for Grant.

I'm not sure you can appeal yellow cards

 

[MJA]

Seems as though we have made hard work of it again at Vale Park, not sure why we feel the need to give the opposition an advantage all of the time.

Still it is a win and ends a bad run of form and amazingly moves us back into the playoffs. Shows how tight this division is now and is likely to be all season

 

[Monkey]

I'm not sure you can appeal yellow cards

I thought you could appeal a second yellow card.

Quick Google shows me to be wrong.

 

[valefan16]

I thought you could appeal a second yellow card.

Quick Google shows me to be wrong.

It'll be irrelevant the after match antics from Grant will likely see a long ban, saw him being dragged away but some have said he actually shoved the referee. I have never seen Granty like that, he appeared very upset about something and wonder if something was said? Should know better regardless although how he got booked yet the Fleetwood guy who was wrestling him and tore his shirt over his head didn't!

Game was an odd one, first half was awful and neither side looked like doing anything, second half they scored, similar to the one we conceded against Bolton, clear foul this time but our lads stopped to moan at the referee and Fleetwood scored whilst we were not playing to the whistle.

We lost our heads a bit and also had to open up and Fleetwood were awful in front of goal (to be fair so have a lot of teams we've played this season). Once Big Reg and Kiko came on it totally changed the game, Reg confuses himself let along the opponents and took his goal well, then a real moment of magic and Premier League class won it for us when Jerome Thomas left three Fleetwood players on their arse to cut in from the goal line and set up Jones for an easy finish.

Then the crazy end...

Huge win, poor performance again but half way to safety which despite sixth has to be our first aim.

 

[valefan16]

Having seen the red card incident on the highlights their lad who gets a red nuts Tavares but Grant just has his say then literally gets wrestled by their number 12! All he does is try to get him off him (which is hard when the guy is pulling him around with his head covered by his shirt).

Rosler seems to be a bit bitter in his interview too? Handball? Looks like a shoulder to me!

 

[markpvfc]

An appalling game of football until Fleetwood scored, then we gave it a go and somehow managed to win. Liked Grant's strop after his red card, picking up the ball and walking off "If I can't play then nobody else can".

 

[Monkey]

An appalling game of football until Fleetwood scored, then we gave it a go and somehow managed to win. Liked Grant's strop after his red card, picking up the ball and walking off "If I can't play then nobody else can".

Good passion from Grant.

 

[Fuzzyvalefan]

Really can't make Vale out this season. We played some great stuff at home early in the season but we have been dreadful for 6 weeks and have been awful away from home all season, yet we are somehow in the top 6. Now i do think there is plenty of talent in this squad and I am beginning to think that we are 6th despite the manager, not because of.

So many times we have only picked up points after we have been forced to alter our starting tactics having fallen behind while away from home we sit so deep that whenever we have played anyone half decent we are out of the game before we have chance to break sweat.

Looking at the squad though there is plenty of talent:

Jak Alnwick- still has areas he needs to improve but there is no better shot stopper in the division

Centre halfs- Nathan Smith and Remi Streete have both been outstanding all season and are improving all the time

Right back- we have Ryan Taylor and Ben Purkiss- two outstanding right backs at this level

Grant/Foley both very decent central midfielders.

Jerome Thomas oozes quality and has a great attitude and work ethic to go with it

Alex Jones is a natural goalscorer, Forrester looks a real prospect and even big Reg Cicilia is effective in his own way

I also think that a few of the other imports show promise- not seen enough of De Freitas but he looks really exiciting when i have seen him, Knops has been consistently solid when he's played and i think Amoros has real potential.

Don't get me wrong, i think there are some turkeys in the squad- McIntosh looks inadequate although to be fair he has yet to play in his favoured position, Perieira looks very ordinary, while Patterson is the very definition of a busted flush. Mbamba might be a good footballer in time but is very raw, ditto Sam Hart. The jury is still out on Tavares for me, good passer but slow as a carthorse.

Overall though in a very average league, we have enough quality to challenge for the top 6, just not sure the manager is getting the best out of what he has at his disposal.

 

[valefan16]

Good post Fuzzy and agree with the majority of it.

We have some real quality, Jerome Thomas is consistently superb and his set up for the second was top class yesterday.

Tavares I don't think is a poor player, I think he's probably too good for us... strange statement on the face of it but what I mean by that is he is used to the continental system we play... however when he has the ball there's never any movement in front of him to make the pass so he has to go wide or backwards. He would probably do better in a Championship outfit than he is with us as needs the intelligence around him.

Reg is an enigma... on the one hand he is bambi on ice, 6'7 yet can't head a ball... he always jumps and goes for it a foot away from where the ball is going to drop! Reg doesn't know what he is going to do... but neither does the opposition and he creates havoc by being shit. Cult status is assured though and he's started scoring, a month ago he'd probably have spooned that chance which he scored yesterday somehow!

We've been poor for weeks now but on the flip side Bolton aside we've been unbeaten in six I believe now in all competitions and still pick up points. Oxford second half is arguably our only decent performance and we need to get the levels up. I always set an initial aim of 25 points by Xmas, so half way to safety and the half way point and we have that with six games to spare.

We have also had a very tough run of fixtures, now we have:

Charlton A
Oldham H
Shrewsbury A
Hartlepool H (Cup)
Northampton H
Wimbledon A
Walsall H
Chesterfield H

On paper we have the bottom three to play and it looks a lot more friendly to us, however nothing is a gimmie but if we can just up it tempo wise we could cement our spot on top six.

Anton Forrester should be back in the next week or so too which is a massive boost as he is arguably our best forward aside from Jones... 4-4-2 with Forrester and Jones up front would be very good I reckon, big man, little man with the little man a goal machine and Forrester in a different league to Pato and Reg.

In essence if we can be as shit as we have the past six to eight weeks since we beat Millwall and still be top six then if we do hit back into form we should have a real chance!

 

[codaplenty]

yet to beat Fleetwood at VP, admittedly only played them 3 times .
However we are in the midst of an appalling run of form and our manager seems to have either lost his voice or done a ' Lord Lucan ' since the Sheff Utd massacre a month ago.
Tomorrow is crucial, win and we are remarkably still in the pot for 5th or 6th, the rest are way clear. Lose and i,m looking out for results involving Shrews, Chesterfield and Oldham.
I'll go for 1-1 with a frozen dire crowd of 3688 and zilch atmosphere.

Attendance 3890, pretty good forecast for me, care to give me some lottery numbers ! . On our website Rosler is saying that was our best away performance of the season, sounds like we missed a hatful of chances ( yet again ) and Glendon saying we dominated the game, where you at the same match ?

 

[valefan16]

Attendance 3890, pretty good forecast for me, care to give me some lottery numbers ! . On our website Rosler is saying that was our best away performance of the season, sounds like we missed a hatful of chances ( yet again ) and Glendon saying we dominated the game, where you at the same match ?

First half was drab and very even, second half you scored and had three of four great chances (don't think Alnwick had to save them mind) then we made a couple of changes and was open last 20 once Reg equalised although at 2-1 I never felt you'd score again.

 

[codaplenty]

First half was drab and very even, second half you scored and had three of four great chances (don't think Alnwick had to save them mind) then we made a couple of changes and was open last 20 once Reg equalised although at 2-1 I never felt you'd score again.

I think what comes to mind is we could'nt hit a barn door, time for Andrew Cole to give his son some serious advice on how to f....score !

 

[markpvfc]

I think what comes to mind is we could'nt hit a barn door, time for Andrew Cole to give his son some serious advice on how to f....score !

He was there yesterday, I saw him go in and was wondering why for a few mins before remembering Devante played for you.

 

[LS Bantam]

How long can someone live off their Dad's name? Cole is making a career out of it, at the same time as being a striker who can't score and is basically crap

 

[valefan16]

To be fair he missed a sitter from a couple of yards somehow slicing it wide.

 

[IanPVFC]

Rosler seems to be a bit bitter in his interview too? Handball? Looks like a shoulder to me!

He palmed it in, it was really really blatant from the Bycars and everyone around us saw it! I'll take that any day though, we just needed that win!

 

[leedsvaliant]

Extremely poor for 60 minutes and I can't recall us having a shot. Fleetwood cut through our midfield at will as there was a huge gap between the forwards and our defence, they had 2 or 3 really good chances to score. The problem being that Fleetwood look like 90% of the teams in this league - great up to a point but when it really matters they looked toothless - I guess that's why the bigger budget teams seem to be doing well because they can afford a goal scorer or two.

After big Reg came on, their centre halves were finally in a game and it really upset their shape, they didn't know whether to try and attack the ball or stay put and it created space. Before that, their no 6?? won everything. I think Reg gets a bad rep because he looks ungainly, but his touch was excellent for the goal and he also found a team mate 9 times out of 10, which is more than Patterson did for 60 minutes.

I don't understand why we don't start with 2 up front as we look likely to score.

Our second looked like handball, but very difficult to give it as you can't say for certain from any angle unless behind the goal.

We seem to be scraping results at the moment which will hopefully give us the platform to actually play better. I was in the sponsors lounge on Saturday and we went in the changing room before the game - it all seemed quite happy but no sign of the management which is strange. I was watching Bruno throughout the game and his input seems minimal - very strange.

 

[valefan16]

Bruno doesn't even talk anymore! Sends Smith out.

 

[MJA]

Bruno doesn't even talk anymore! Sends Smith out.

Already sick of the local media then?