Saturday 1st March

[leedsvaliant]

I thought Vale started very slowly and it took the shock of our early goal to jolt you into action. After that it was a decent game, end to end and both sides having some decent chances, although the refereeing from David Rock was a bit random. You seemed to pick up a few injuries during the course of the game too.

I was impressed by Crosby's post-match interview, showing that he isn't just an Adkins puppet and explaining some adjustments made during the game. I would expect him to get the next couple of games and so long as we continue to make progress, longer.

Yep. It seemed like we weren't expecting you to come out of the traps fast. Anyone with half a brain could have foretold that. We needed someone to put their foot on the ball in those first 20 minutes but instead we were just lumping it up to Hackford who is terrible at hold up play (it's not his game in fairness).

We settled a bit but it became a very stop/start game after that, not helped by the dreadful referee who thought that everyone had come to see him. Thought you had the better of the 'chances' although there was very few either way apart from pot shots.

Thought you played pretty well to be honest. Teams often reserve their best performance of the season against us. Probably a draw was about fair but we need to be much, much better if we want to trouble the autos.

Crosby is a nice guy, who talks well. But he's never a manager in a million years. Decent coach but he just hasn’t got it. I wouldn't want him to be anywhere near a permanent manager if I was you.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Overall it's an old squad. Maybe the oldest in the league or certainly very close?

McFadzean, Dunkley, Madden, Grigg, Fleck, Naylor and others. All of these have seemingly been either injured for large parts of the season or haven't made hardly any appearances due to injuries and not got going. I don't know what the average of those 6 are but it must be about 33.

Having so many over 30 in squad ain't helping the injury situation that's for certain.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Okay so in my post I specifically mentioned defensive recruits, so let’s take a look at who we’ve brought in this season, their age, and the injury (injuries) they’ve picked up this year and assess the relevance of their age from there:

Devan Tanton (21) - x3 separate hamstring issues, the third resulted in him being sent back to Fulham

Harvey Araujo (20) - x2 seperate calf issues, the latter he picked up just after Xmas has ruled him out for another month or so from now.

Chey Dunkley (32) - First choice CB at beginning of season, picked up a Fractured cervical vertabrae picked up in training in October. Has since had surgery and likely to be out for rest of season.

Vontae Daley Campbell (23) - x1 Hamstring issue that’s kept him out for much of the season since he picked it up at Morecambe in October. Back now but still building fitness.

Lewis Gordon (24) - x1 Calf issue to our first choice LB picked up at Carlisle in December. Hasn’t returned yet.

Kyle McFadzean (38) - x1 knee ligaments injury picked up in his 2nd game against Bromley from an innocuous challenge that’s going to keep him out for atleast a few weeks from now.

Janoi Donacien (31) - x1 Groin issue that is an ongoing issue he’s had since Ipswich and what kept him out of action there for over a year.

Jack Sparkes (24) - No injury picked up since joining (yet).

So, assessing all of those separate injuries picked up to our defensive recruits this year (A grand total of EIGHT recruits for those claiming we failed to prepare for the step up of this league), and the nature of those injuries, I’d say a huge ONE injury is possibly linked to the players age/injury history, and that would be Janoi Donacien who we signed in January but probably wouldn’t have even touched if it had not been for our ongoing injury issues anyway.

In actual fact, the muscular injuries that you might link to a players older age, have actually been picked up by our younger recruits, as you can see above!! So as I keep telling you, stop with the lazy comments about our ‘elder statesman’ contributing to the injury issues, because that’s quite clearly bollocks. Instead I would put it down to a mixture of bad luck in the way some of those injuries have been picked up, and also a potential question mark around our S&C department preparation for games given the sheer amount of muscular injuries picked up by many of our younger players, that just simply shouldn’t happen.

Calf and hamstring injuries? I would look at the training and physio department, one or two times a season is just bad luck, that amount has a root cause somewhere

 

[Boz]

Crosby is a nice guy, who talks well. But he's never a manager in a million years. Decent coach but he just hasn’t got it. I wouldn't want him to be anywhere near a permanent manager if I was you.

The question is he be good enough to keep us up? There were certainly signs on Saturday of a team playing closer to our potential than we came close to in the last months of Adkins reign and he brought Josh Hawkes in from the cold. I get that he’s riveted to playing with wing-backs but hopefully will ditch the idea of Omari Patrick filling that role on the left. The only way he would be considered for the permanent post was if he keeps us up and the takeover doesn’t happen.

I’ve only seen Vale and Notts County of the top seven and you were definitely better than the Magpies in those two games. Good teamwork, didn’t seem to be faxed by the changes whether enforced or tactical, seemed to have plenty of decent players for this level though on Saturday there was nobody who stood out as exceptional.

 

[spireite]

Calf and hamstring injuries? I would look at the training and physio department, one or two times a season is just bad luck, that amount has a root cause somewhere

Absolutely, I think 'wtf guys' questions have been asked for a while and they are looking at everything as to why. Honestly though I think at the end of the day 'it's just one of them int it' pretty much sums it up.
We're not alone in having shit loads of injuries, seems like tonnes of teams have them, it's just unfortunate that like 75% of ours have been (new) defenders. It is a fair argument that we've got too many old players I reckon and the club have made a few noises that youth could be the main recruitment policy going forward, but I don't think that's the sole reason why we've had an injury crisis this year. To be fair guys like McFad and Donacien were signed BECAUSE we had an injury crisis, then proceed to get injured too. Old guys not getting a game is pretty much all you can get in January unless you're gonna spaff cash around like a Hollywood team

 

[Cloudy]

Calf and hamstring injuries? I would look at the training and physio department, one or two times a season is just bad luck, that amount has a root cause somewhere

Many clubs seem to have a significant increase in hamstring or calf injuries. Is it because players are much more finely tuned athletes or the game is so much more ‘explosive’ these days? I don’t think it is just down to poor training or preparation.
It seems to be an issue across the leagues from the top level down

 

[loz]

Many clubs seem to have a significant increase in hamstring or calf injuries. Is it because players are much more finely tuned athletes or the game is so much more ‘explosive’ these days? I don’t think it is just down to poor training or preparation.
It seems to be an issue across the leagues from the top level down

I think you have given 2 credible reasons. A third is the state of pitches this time of year, eg, Salford's pitch is like Morecambe Bay at the moment.

 

[Cloudy]

I think you have given 2 credible reasons. A third is the state of pitches this time of year, eg, Salford's pitch is like Morecambe Bay at the moment.

Tbf, ours isn’t any better yet when you consider what we played on in say the 1970’s, they are all like bowling greens

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Absolutely, I think 'wtf guys' questions have been asked for a while and they are looking at everything as to why. Honestly though I think at the end of the day 'it's just one of them int it' pretty much sums it up.
We're not alone in having shit loads of injuries, seems like tonnes of teams have them, it's just unfortunate that like 75% of ours have been (new) defenders. It is a fair argument that we've got too many old players I reckon and the club have made a few noises that youth could be the main recruitment policy going forward, but I don't think that's the sole reason why we've had an injury crisis this year. To be fair guys like McFad and Donacien were signed BECAUSE we had an injury crisis, then proceed to get injured too. Old guys not getting a game is pretty much all you can get in January unless you're gonna spaff cash around like a Hollywood team

We had the same last season, sacked all our medical staff after a review, brought in new with a new strength and conditioning regime and had hardly any injuries this season, certainly not muscle related.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Many clubs seem to have a significant increase in hamstring or calf injuries. Is it because players are much more finely tuned athletes or the game is so much more ‘explosive’ these days? I don’t think it is just down to poor training or preparation.
It seems to be an issue across the leagues from the top level down

There is some truth to that however better strength and conditioning plus physio does help, we have gone from Chesterfield of last season to next to nothing by changing and improving both.

 

[kieran_vale]

The question is he be good enough to keep us up? There were certainly signs on Saturday of a team playing closer to our potential than we came close to in the last months of Adkins reign and he brought Josh Hawkes in from the cold. I get that he’s riveted to playing with wing-backs but hopefully will ditch the idea of Omari Patrick filling that role on the left. The only way he would be considered for the permanent post was if he keeps us up and the takeover doesn’t happen.

I’ve only seen Vale and Notts County of the top seven and you were definitely better than the Magpies in those two games. Good teamwork, didn’t seem to be faxed by the changes whether enforced or tactical, seemed to have plenty of decent players for this level though on Saturday there was nobody who stood out as exceptional.

After the game on the Merseyrail back to Lime Street from Rock Ferry was talking with one of your fans about the game and he’d said Hawkes had been frozen out by Adkins which I found astounding as he looked decent. Forced our keeper into a reasonable save in the first half (though was a bit more one for the cameras). Ever likely he got sacked really.

Been said before we’re one of those teams that nobody will look at as the best in the league but we are right now the hardest team in the league to beat even if we probably draw a little too often. Crosby played it right tactically by allowing Nathan Smith at the back a lot of time on the ball which when we were in L1 a lot of teams did to us successfully and it worked there too.