Thursday 22nd & Saturday 24th August

[JJ1990]

Feel a little bit better about the Alex's prospects this season after seeing some of the results today. There looks to be a lot of shit in L2 this season. Like, an awful lot of shit. League looks wide open through the first 3 games, anyone can beat anyone.

 

[gary]

The most one sided 1-0 win I've ever watched. Cheltenham were absolutely hopeless.

 

[Scum.]

The most one sided 1-0 win I've ever watched. Cheltenham were absolutely hopeless.

It certainly sounds like they haven’t been at the races.

 

[OneDecentLester]

Dominated the ball with pretty much 70% possession, but didn’t really create too many clear cut chances today. I think we did just about do enough to win, but in all honesty can’t complain too much at a draw. Think our lack of options from the bench showed that the injuries have taken a bit of a toll on us, because if we’d had say Colclough, Madden, Mandeville etc to bring on I think we go on to win that 2/3-0 after Salford went down to 10.

Salford were resolute, dogged and very physical. Organised side that were difficult to break down but, for the budget they likely have, and some of the players in their squad they should be looking to be far more than that, approached the game like a bog standard bottom half L2 team, which is probs where they’ll end up if that becomes a consistent approach. Their captain Tilt btw, what a fucking clown. His red card was hilarious… first yellow for mouthing at ref, and second yellow 2 seconds later for blatantly taking Grigg out whilst trying to block him, and then went on to offer the whole of our west stand out for a fight

Standouts for us was our absolutely outstanding left back Lewis Gordon, who I think is going to have a top career and make us a bit of money in a future sale. Berry scored another good goal for us and thought he caused their right back plenty of problems throughout, big season ahead for him. And Dobra second half was brilliant too I thought. Take the point and move on, some interesting results around the league today, bit of a humbling for some Vale fans…

 

[jacobncfc]

3-0, Hendry/Gilbey/Tomlinson with the goals, Nemane x2 and Leigh with the assists. Thank you Salford, Notts and Accrington for those player contributions.

Only disappointment was the possession stats which have declined week after week.

67.3% today.

Reckon you can beat our 82% against Fleetwood at some point?

 

[Scum.]

Reckon you can beat our 82% against Fleetwood at some point?

Unfortunately we are declining every week so I wouldn’t have much faith in it but we have not played the worst team in the league yet so let’s see…

 

[jacobncfc]

No one with three wins out of three backs up by hunch that this is a very weak division this year. There’s no one I think you can put in the top seven with any real confidence, let alone the top three, apart from maybe MK.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Who's the worst team in the league?

 

[Scum.]

Who's the worst team in the league?

Morecambe.

 

[OneDecentLester]

No one with three wins out of three backs up by hunch that this is a very weak division this year. There’s no one I think you can put in the top seven with any real confidence, let alone the top three, apart from maybe MK.

How early are these shouts man? Weak division ffs we’re three games in. Maybe what it actually is, is a really competitive league?

 

[jacobncfc]

How early are these shouts man? Weak division ffs we’re three games in. Maybe what it actually is, is a really competitive league?

Was a shout weeks ago to be fair, I just think you had a top three plus MK last season that absolutely everyone had challenging for promotion and clearly had loads more quality than anyone does this year (apart from MK obviously), and despite a couple of bad starts they ended up the top four.

I did forget about Doncaster though. Think they’re the only one you could hang your hat on, probably along with MK again.

 

[Scum.]

Was a shout weeks ago to be fair, I just think you had a top three plus MK last season that absolutely everyone had challenging for promotion and clearly had loads more quality than anyone does this year (apart from MK obviously), and despite a couple of bad starts they ended up the top four.

I did forget about Doncaster though. Think they’re the only one you could hang your hat on, probably along with MK again.

Fully agree with this. We are still going to piss the league, for no reason but the league being a piece of piss.

 

[OneDecentLester]

Was a shout weeks ago to be fair, I just think you had a top three plus MK last season that absolutely everyone had challenging for promotion and clearly had loads more quality than anyone does this year (apart from MK obviously), and despite a couple of bad starts they ended up the top four.

I did forget about Doncaster though. Think they’re the only one you could hang your hat on, probably along with MK again.

So because the league is potentially tougher to call this year it’s automatically a ‘weak division’?

Last years top 3 with their ridiculous budgets is not the ‘norm’ for league 2.

 

[GTFCfish]

I wasn’t too worried after our hammering at Notts but now even RELEGATION HAUNTED MK Dons are above us ffs.

 

[GTFCfish]

Strong enough lineup and bench for us.

Thank fuck you had a strong lineup out otherwise you might’ve got a right pasting.

 

[OneDecentLester]

Thank fuck you had a strong lineup out otherwise you might’ve got a proper pasting.

Suspect we won’t be seeing Dan tonight

 

[jacobncfc]

So because the league is potentially tougher to call this year it’s automatically a ‘weak division’?

Last years top 3 with their ridiculous budgets is not the ‘norm’ for league 2.

Weaker than last season is probably a fairer description yeah, this feels a more regular unpredictable one (and even then Crawley suddenly went postal).

 

[valefan16]

Thank fuck you had a strong lineup out otherwise you might’ve got a right pasting.

That’s what probably makes it even worse than the Barnsley 7-0 last season in that the squad we had today has zero excuses to put that in, That said it was a bad 15 minutes and when the dust settles aside from that we’ve been decent enough. Connor Hall was a big miss today.

Moore sounded furious and at least apologised which is more than Crosby did.

We’ve got a top three squad on paper but as I have kept saying we’ve got to put that onto the grass and that’s why most Vale fans have had caution in the optimism. It’s far better man for man than the promotion side three years back but it is never that simple, Notts Co went to down to non league when they were seen as league favourites for example so you can’t turn up expecting to waltz it.

We need a big reaction next week against Doncaster or alarm bells will be ringing regarding Moore.

 

[GTFCfish]

Suspect we won’t be seeing Dan tonight

 

[hellogregory]

We should sack Simpson (and Abbott) now, but we wont, yet.

 

[LS Bantam]

Strange non event match in the end, game over after 5 minutes thanks to a red card and penalty which then became a training ground knock about after that.
Should’ve been 5 or 6 at least but for some wasteful play. A shame the Salford ‘goal’ wasn’t given last week which could/should have had us on 3 wins from 3.

 

[Gladders]

How early are these shouts man? Weak division ffs we’re three games in. Maybe what it actually is, is a really competitive league?

You know a league full of weak teams still makes it competitive right?


Competitive league with no standout competitive teams

 

[OneDecentLester]

You know a league full of weak teams still makes it competitive right?


Competitive league with no standout competitive teams

And we’re making that call 3 games in yes ?

 

[BarraMatt]

Good run out against Vale's second string.

 

[Gladders]

And we’re making that call 3 games in yes ?

That's what he has done yeah

 

[OneDecentLester]

That's what he has done yeah

Ah right, thanks for clarifying

 

[valefan16]

And we’re making that call 3 games in yes ?

It's the pit of the EFL so it’s hardly going to be full of quality sides, certainly a good level down from L1, Wrexham and Stockport have done well due to finance but it’s far tougher there than it was in our previous stints, almost like the Championship used to be with some of the clubs and budgets in it.

That said it’s more of a level playing field, rolling up to Bolton or Ipswich to get battered isn’t that much fun (that said we gave Ipswich two decent games!) and it wasn’t as enjoyable. If say someone like Notts Co who look decent and fun at this level played like that with the same squad in L1 they get destroyed most weeks such is the quality difference in how you are punished.

Whilst I hope we go back up I found the last 18 months once the promotion wave wore off and the token wins at Plymouth and Derby dried up for dire form pretty mind numbing.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

When you say "almost like the Championship used " how far back are you going? Cos on the face of it that feels like a stretch to say the least.

 

[valefan16]

When you say "almost like the Championship used " how far back are you going? Cos on the face of it that feels like a stretch to say the least.

10-15 years back. It’s riddled with big budgets and big clubs. Take out your bottom 7-8 clubs like swim around the sinkhole year on year like Cambridge or Shrewsbury and the top end is a huge gulf.

Used to be easier to be more competitive at that level than it is now, a lot of so called traditional smaller clubs have had investment and pushed into the Prem/top Championship level like your Luton’s, Bournemouths, Brentford’s etc so the former big clubs, ones who’ve maybe had financial issues or a couple of bad seasons end up in L1 and largely find it hard to get out as there are a few of them.

 

[codaplenty]

This was a pretty good game for Fleetwood, we dominated possession ( without ever really threatening) and played a lot of good football. Missing Coughlan up front but opportunities for Lonnie Donegan and Mipo to shine .
Gills defended well and finished the slightly stronger of the 2 sides. We've played ,2 of the fancied sides for promotion in the last 8 days and more than stood up to the test