Saturday 16th September fixtures

[Moomin]

Thought I’d kick this thread off and looking forward to having a full programme of fixtures. Yesterday felt odd.

We have to bounce back at home vs Cheltenham. Yesterday was poor but there were extenuating circumstances, despite the fact Orient deserved the win. We’ll have both Sinisalo and Niskanen back from international duty and hopefully both Aitchison and Muskwe will be fit to return as we badly need bodies up top. Also hoping for at least one new signing this week too.

Cheltenham haven’t scored yet in the league but that won’t last forever. Provided we play to our best then I fully expect 3 points, but we’re more than capable of not performing and losing again. Going for 3-1 City.

 

[The Evil Dead]

We’ll have both Sinisalo and Niskanen back from international duty

I don't think you will.

 

[leedsvaliant]

It's a game that we probably expect to take the initiative in. A high expectation game, where a win could take us top, we all know what happens here....

We should be pretty refreshed after this break and the lads coming back from international duty should be buzzing.

Northampton look to be solid if unspectacular and will be well organised and physical you would think. If our technical players tick we should win but I don't feel like we've put in a complete performance yet and we're due a stinker.

 

[Moomin]

I don't think you will.

Yep, typical of our luck injury wise - looks like Niskanen has a shoulder or arm injury but hopefully not a bad one. At least we ‘should’ have Sinisalo back this week, unless he contracts yellow fever or something in the meantime.

 

[Si Robin]

It'll be interesting to see how we line up - and also depends what defenders we have back following the massacre at Rovers on Tuesday.

As everyone keeps saying, we're bound to score some time. I wouldn't be surprised if we pull off another shithousing like last season - if only to make Jon Beer off the My New Football Club podcast cry some more.

However, I also wouldn't be surprised if we ended up being beat 3/4-0. Such is the level of confidence at Cheltenham right now.

EDIT: If we don't score within 12 mins, we will set a new EFL record for the longest time into a season without scoring.

 

[folletto]

First game in charge for Appleton, will be interesting to see how he lines up and whether or not any of the deadline day signings start. It's a bit of a weird one as instinctively it feels like we should beat Stevenage and a big portion of the fanbase will already be on Appleton's back if we don't but they are rightfully top of the league and we are rightfully 17th. Hopefully a win to get things off on the right foot but don't have too much confidence

 

[LordJord]

It's a game that we probably expect to take the initiative in. A high expectation game, where a win could take us top, we all know what happens here....

We should be pretty refreshed after this break and the lads coming back from international duty should be buzzing.

Northampton look to be solid if unspectacular and will be well organised and physical you would think. If our technical players tick we should win but I don't feel like we've put in a complete performance yet and we're due a stinker.

Much to pretty much everyone's surprise we have actually been much more of a footballing side this season (I certainly didnt see a shift to possession football happening over one summer). Think we rank 5th so far this season for possession and are much more content to keep the ball and be more expansive. We still lack an effective number 9, we have forwards who will pressure but are not really L1 quality, particularly when it comes to hold up play, we cannot win anything in the air up top.

Defensively we are still pretty solid which is good to see. We still have quite a few bodies out injured but hoping to have one or two back for this one.

 

[valefan16]

It's a game that we probably expect to take the initiative in. A high expectation game, where a win could take us top, we all know what happens here....

We should be pretty refreshed after this break and the lads coming back from international duty should be buzzing.

Northampton look to be solid if unspectacular and will be well organised and physical you would think. If our technical players tick we should win but I don't feel like we've put in a complete performance yet and we're due a stinker.

I am away for the 2 home games which was annoying with the Burton game re-arranged! but a good chance to get more points on the board and will be favourites to win both but as you say the Vale fan in you kind of would rather be away to Bolton or something as we always slip up here.

The break came at the wrong time as proud as we are of Devine training with the England senior squad and Blaster and Thomas in their respective squads as momentum was good with 8 unbeaten and the high's of Oxford it would have been good to keep going and ride the wave.

Tricky tie though, Northampton are a decent side, have had a good couple of seasons and are used to winning games so will have to be at our best to get a positive result, have a huge fixture congestion coming up so may rotate a few as Crosby likes to do but would be great to finally get Arblaster and Devine starting together in that midfield which would be exciting from a Vale POV.

4 points from this home double header would be a decent return, if we got 6 then I would be quite excited!

 

[K-Win]

Tough game for us at Derby but I'm quietly confident.

Last week's win over Peterborough showed that we may actually be pretty good against teams that aren't using a low block. The Rams will take the initiative and that should suit us.

Our defence has been impressive so far and the key to the game may be how Poole and Shaughnessy cope with Waghorn etc.

I'll go with 1-1 but we have potential to do better.

 

[LancashireTrotters]

Reading away. I’ll always struggle to name a more boring outfit in the football league than them.

Should win, but we’ll probably lose.

 

[leedsvaliant]

Reading away. I’ll always struggle to name a more boring outfit in the football league than them.

Should win, but we’ll probably lose.

Totally agree. Pointless club.

You should beat them easily. They have one or two half decent players but they look poorly coached.

I can see Bolton going on a bit of a run and being top come October time. Feel they'll be the strongest team this year.

 

[leedsvaliant]

Much to pretty much everyone's surprise we have actually been much more of a footballing side this season (I certainly didnt see a shift to possession football happening over one summer). Think we rank 5th so far this season for possession and are much more content to keep the ball and be more expansive. We still lack an effective number 9, we have forwards who will pressure but are not really L1 quality, particularly when it comes to hold up play, we cannot win anything in the air up top.

Defensively we are still pretty solid which is good to see. We still have quite a few bodies out injured but hoping to have one or two back for this one.

Might suit us more then. We've enjoyed playing the possession for possession's sake teams. Let them knock it around and then wait for the mistake. Having said that, we can struggle to break teams down who are solid defensively.

We need our really technical players like Chislett, Arblaster and Devine to be on song in order to break a tight game.

We still haven’t put a full match performance in yet. 20 minutes versus Carlisle, 45 minutes versus Reading where we have looked unbelievably good but mixed with some patchy stuff.

Hopefully we will get more consistent as the season moves on. 3 highly winnable games in a row probably means 0 points.

 

[Floreat Salopia]

Bristol Rovers at home.

We tend to win one then lose one so far. After a defeat at Carlisle last time out it’s now our time to win to continue the pattern. Unfortunately I’m not confident in the slightest of this happening.

There’s a good proportion of Salop fans that are calling for Taylor’s head already, bizarrely after just six games. The atmosphere if we go behind early could get quite toxic but I hope it’s not aimed at Taylor and it’s vented frustration towards the chairman.

Just like last season we’ve been screwed over by injuries yet again which adds more pressure, just can’t see anything but a Bristol Rovers win here, a comfortable one at that.

Salop 0-2 Bristol Rovers

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Bristol Rovers at home.

We tend to win one then lose one so far. After a defeat at Carlisle last time out it’s now our time to win to continue the pattern. Unfortunately I’m not confident in the slightest of this happening.

There’s a good proportion of Salop fans that are calling for Taylor’s head already, bizarrely after just six games. The atmosphere if we go behind early could get quite toxic but I hope it’s not aimed at Taylor and it’s vented frustration towards the chairman.

Just like last season we’ve been screwed over by injuries yet again which adds more pressure, just can’t see anything but a Bristol Rovers win here, a comfortable one at that.

Salop 0-2 Bristol Rovers

A Lincoln fan said we'd win comfortably too and that was at home, and didnt happen.
We dont do comfortable wins, only 1 win all season and that was in the dying embers at Charlton. We do have the players it just hasnt clicked yet for whatever reason, so unsure what to expect in this game - defend deep and you probably win like most of the spoiler teams in this league do

 

[SVH]

Wigan away. Not really sure what to expect from them but Maloney was moaning about teams like Blackpool letting them have the ball and hitting them on the break and they didn't know how to cope with that.

Hopefully they still don't, because 100% that is what we will allow them to do and hit them on the break. I'll go for 1-1.

 

[leedsvaliant]

Bristol Rovers at home.

We tend to win one then lose one so far. After a defeat at Carlisle last time out it’s now our time to win to continue the pattern. Unfortunately I’m not confident in the slightest of this happening.

There’s a good proportion of Salop fans that are calling for Taylor’s head already, bizarrely after just six games. The atmosphere if we go behind early could get quite toxic but I hope it’s not aimed at Taylor and it’s vented frustration towards the chairman.

Just like last season we’ve been screwed over by injuries yet again which adds more pressure, just can’t see anything but a Bristol Rovers win here, a comfortable one at that.

Salop 0-2 Bristol Rovers

Barton would surely be under pressure if you did beat them. He's bought in a lot of players and to only have 1 win on the board so far when I thought they should be top 6 is poor whichever way you look at it.

I can only speak about Shrewsbury looking from the outside in really. Are expectations too high? Many others on here predicted a season of struggle after your summer, and although you have a few decent players, it doesn't look much more than a mid table team. Our expectations were low after a dreadful end to last season and a dreadful start to the season but we're doing better than expected. Realistically, we are likely to fall from where we are now but I'd say we're a slightly bigger club than Shrewsbury and realise that it will take time to compete with the bigger boys. I think after your summer, a mid table season would actually be decent.

 

[valefan16]

Wigan away. Not really sure what to expect from them but Maloney was moaning about teams like Blackpool letting them have the ball and hitting them on the break and they didn't know how to cope with that.

Hopefully they still don't, because 100% that is what we will allow them to do and hit them on the break. I'll go for 1-1.

Never get this, teams thinking they are Man City moaning because teams come and sit tight and let them ping it around half way for 90 minutes. Its about sticking the ball in the onion bag.

 

[Si Robin]

I'm with you - tippy-tappy passing on the halfway line is boring as fuck. Get it in the mixer and lets see some goals

(says the supporter of a club who's scored 1 goal in 8 fixtures this season)

 

[valefan16]

Barton would surely be under pressure if you did beat them. He's bought in a lot of players and to only have 1 win on the board so far when I thought they should be top 6 is poor whichever way you look at it.

I can only speak about Shrewsbury looking from the outside in really. Are expectations too high? Many others on here predicted a season of struggle after your summer, and although you have a few decent players, it doesn't look much more than a mid table team. Our expectations were low after a dreadful end to last season and a dreadful start to the season but we're doing better than expected. Realistically, we are likely to fall from where we are now but I'd say we're a slightly bigger club than Shrewsbury and realise that it will take time to compete with the bigger boys. I think after your summer, a mid table season would actually be decent.

You can compete and get promoted out of this league even with the big boys in it as Burton and Wycombe have proven but for clubs of the lower to mid range size without bucket loads of cash you need a lot of luck as well, and in that i mean injuries, usually clubs wont have the depth and that saw us nose dive second half of last season, the depth is harder to come by compared to bigger clubs who can splash £1 Million in January to replace injuries or improve.

Lot of debate on our forum about if we are over achieving or if this is one where its come together and a lot of excitement about the levels of player we've pulled in with Arblaster and Devine but at the moment it is just a form table rather a league table so way too early to say, lose the next two or three and we are "going down" again!

See where everyone is after 15 games and we will have a good idea, but for Vale, Stevenage or Exeter to sustain this we'd need a hell of a lot to go for us in terms of having our best XI available, for us not to lose Arblaster in January. I am just considering the fact we are over 25% to safety so less to do over the next 40 games!

That said pleasing the club is in a good place off the field at the moment with Ojo rejecting a move to Bolton and signing a new deal so the rumours in January seem to be way off.

 

[valefan16]

I'm with you - tippy-tappy passing on the halfway line is boring as fuck. Get it in the mixer and lets see some goals

(says the supporter of a club who's scored 1 goal in 8 fixtures this season)

Well it becomes predictable doesnt it? Barcelona had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Man City have Foden, De Bruyne etc so they can unlock sides sitting in, Wigan don't have that so invariably if you sit in and wait for the errors that inevitably happen you get chances. Blackpool did it against us, we just let them play it until Ekpiteta got frustrated or bored and booted it into the channel or out of play and cruised for most of it to a solid point.

 

[Razzmachaz]

London Road hasn't been in general a happy hunting ground for us in the last 20 years. I always consider the POSH away as a difficult fixture. Having said that they have hit a blip in the last couple of weeks. I said before I expect Orient to both win convincingly and lose by large margins this season and Posh away feels like it could be a 3 or 4-0 not in our favour if we are not competitive from the start.

 

[Floreat Salopia]

A Lincoln fan said we'd win comfortably too and that was at home, and didnt happen.
We dont do comfortable wins, only 1 win all season and that was in the dying embers at Charlton. We do have the players it just hasnt clicked yet for whatever reason, so unsure what to expect in this game - defend deep and you probably win like most of the spoiler teams in this league do

We won’t sit back and defend, we’ll aim for about 60% possession without doing much with it. Totally different when under Cotterill last season where we would have 40% possession or less but shithouse a 1-0 win. We get caught in possession in our own half far too many times for my liking.

Barton would surely be under pressure if you did beat them. He's bought in a lot of players and to only have 1 win on the board so far when I thought they should be top 6 is poor whichever way you look at it.

I can only speak about Shrewsbury looking from the outside in really. Are expectations too high? Many others on here predicted a season of struggle after your summer, and although you have a few decent players, it doesn't look much more than a mid table team. Our expectations were low after a dreadful end to last season and a dreadful start to the season but we're doing better than expected. Realistically, we are likely to fall from where we are now but I'd say we're a slightly bigger club than Shrewsbury and realise that it will take time to compete with the bigger boys. I think after your summer, a mid table season would actually be decent.

No expectations aren’t too high. We expect midtable minimum, why shouldn’t we when we’re more than an established League 1 club, after all, this is our ninth successive season here now so we know what it takes to be a midtable side.

We might not be the best right now but I can hand on heart say that we’ll be nowhere near the bottom four, anybody who predicted us to be will be wrong without sounding arrogant here. We have easily a midtable team but Taylor just isn’t using them correctly like Cotterill did. I’m not going to get on his back after just six games like some, but he needs to learn fast as every bloke in the stands can see his tactics are holding us back. We need to go back to our shithousery ways of last year I feel and play players in their correct positions, be nice to have a plan B formation too.

I’d argue that we’re similar sized clubs, not that it matters one jot so it’s a pointless debate. We were ahead of most clubs in this division in terms of recruitment and pushing on and aiming for the play offs, all Roland Wycherley needed to do was keep Cotterill on, give him the funds and we’d be pushing play offs this season as we have the main core of players good enough for that to build around.

Main reason why we’re struggling at the minute is our midfield. Kenneh has so far won the most tackles and interceptions than any other player in League 1 to date, but his passing has to be with the worst. No point winning the ball back if you pass it straight back to your opponent. Perry can be good when he wants to be but carries a ‘I can’t be bothered’ attitude at times. No idea what’s happened to Tom Bayliss. Was a Championship quality player last season, he’s been horrendous by his standards so far. Maybe a case of being able to perform better for one manager and not the other?

But yeah, we’ll be fine overall. Just fed up of League 1 football now. Same clubs every year, be nice just to have a year or two back in the Championship for a change. Unlikely won’t be happening next season though!

 

[BRFC_Gas]

We won’t sit back and defend, we’ll aim for about 60% possession without doing much with it. Totally different when under Cotterill last season where we would have 40% possession or less but shithouse a 1-0 win. We get caught in possession in our own half far too many times for my liking.

That's pretty much how we have been. A couple of games we have missed loads of chances but the rest we have had 60% of the ball and hardly troubled the keeper.
I guess both of our keepers should bring a book to read during the game!
Woods is one player who has hit the ground running, oozes quality along with Thomas.

Barton would surely be under pressure if you did beat them. He's bought in a lot of players and to only have 1 win on the board so far when I thought they should be top 6 is poor whichever way you look at it.

Barton seems to have been given a free reign to do what he wants here, although that was under Wael, im not sure if our new investors will be so patient.
Of course Barton could just point any criticism at the fact we didnt get JCH in - goals win games
You can see they are good players though, once a few of the underperformers start producing we will win a lot of games.

 

[Floreat Salopia]

That's pretty much how we have been. A couple of games we have missed loads of chances but the rest we have had 60% of the ball and hardly troubled the keeper.
I guess both of our keepers should bring a book to read during the game!
Woods is one player who has hit the ground running, oozes quality along with Thomas.



Barton seems to have been given a free reign to do what he wants here, although that was under Wael, im not sure if our new investors will be so patient.
Of course Barton could just point any criticism at the fact we didnt get JCH in - goals win games
You can see they are good players though, once a few of the underperformers start producing we will win a lot of games.

We sound very similar indeed. We create a fair few chances, but unfortunately they always seem to fall to Ryan Bowman and not Dan Udoh. Hopefully Bowman is dropped this Saturday and Mata or Phillips start, if Taylor persists with Bowman then I can only assume that he’s got Taylor’s nudes.

Woodsy is one of my favourite players to play for us. Honestly no idea how he hasn’t gone onto playing regularly in the Premier League, thought he was destined to when we sold him for 1M to Brentford. The ginger Pirlo we used to call him. He’s a Salop fan who gets to our games whenever he’s injured/not playing so he’ll get a good reception from us.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

We sound very similar indeed. We create a fair few chances, but unfortunately they always seem to fall to Ryan Bowman and not Dan Udoh. Hopefully Bowman is dropped this Saturday and Mata or Phillips start, if Taylor persists with Bowman then I can only assume that he’s got Taylor’s nudes.

Woodsy is one of my favourite players to play for us. Honestly no idea how he hasn’t gone onto playing regularly in the Premier League, thought he was destined to when we sold him for 1M to Brentford. The ginger Pirlo we used to call him. He’s a Salop fan who gets to our games whenever he’s injured/not playing so he’ll get a good reception from us.

I can see already why you used to call him that, he certainly pulls the strings, demands the ball and keeps things ticking over. You can see him visibly frustrated at the lack of movement ahead of him at times which is pretty much the reason we have 60-65% possession and very little efforts at goal. Our chances have been falling to the right players (Collins and Marquis) but they have squandered them.
Its all setup for a dour 0-0 which probably means an end-to-end 3-3

 

[codaplenty]

Once upon a time we had a fantastic record against Oxford. Unfortunately they are now having the better results, but a new manager brings renewed hope. I suppose a draw would be a good result against them as they have started the season very well but reality is we need some 3 pointers. Hoping for a win but a draw 2-2

 

[Luke Imp]

First game in charge for Appleton, will be interesting to see how he lines up and whether or not any of the deadline day signings start. It's a bit of a weird one as instinctively it feels like we should beat Stevenage and a big portion of the fanbase will already be on Appleton's back if we don't but they are rightfully top of the league and we are rightfully 17th. Hopefully a win to get things off on the right foot but don't have too much confidence

Appleton hates Evans so that's a fiery one to start with, a total contrast in styles as well!

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

Totally agree. Pointless club.

You should beat them easily. They have one or two half decent players but they look poorly coached.

I can see Bolton going on a bit of a run and being top come October time. Feel they'll be the strongest team this year.

not sure what u mean by a pointless club?

 

[Pompeyblueboy]

Wigan away. Not really sure what to expect from them but Maloney was moaning about teams like Blackpool letting them have the ball and hitting them on the break and they didn't know how to cope with that.

Hopefully they still don't, because 100% that is what we will allow them to do and hit them on the break. I'll go for 1-1.

Be wary they managed to beat Bolton 4 nil which must be the shock result of the season up to yet

 

[leedsvaliant]

not sure what u mean by a pointless club?

Reading. Even their own fans don't like them.