Tuesday 17th August

[Sydney Posse]

We were rubbish on Saturday. We’ve also got a few injuries to key players. I don’t think we are as bad as some of our supporters think though. I think we will draw

 

[Robshep]

Given they're coming up agaisnt the best midfield in world football, Swindon could have problems. It didn't sound as if their midfielders had particularly good games against us.

Stop exaggerating.

 

[F!RTHY]

Stevenage (h) - they’re yet to drop any points, so I imagine they’ll be full of confidence heading into this one.

We still have injuries to key players. Hoping Songo’o might make his first start, but I think this one might come too soon for him. Threkeld could return. No idea where Eisa is - he didn’t even make the bench at the weekend (?). No idea if Sutton’s back fit. I admire Dereks secretive approach, but fuck me it’s hard predicting whose fit and who isn’t.

Cooke sat in midfield at the weekend, and Gareth Evans took up the number ten role. I thought he did alright, but Vernam was immense when he came on - so I think he should start.

GK: Richard O’Donnell

RB: Finn Cousin-Dawson
CB: Paudie O’Connor
CB: Niall Canavan
LB: Liam Ridehalgh

CM: Elliot Watt
CM: Callum Cooke

RW: Alex Gilliead
CAM: Charles Vernam
LW: Lee Angol

CF: Andy Cook

1-0 City (Cook) - att: 13,101

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Because then the game later in the season is at your place and we give up home advantage at a potentially more pivotal time. Sort your fucking cow field of a pitch out earlier. You Welsh dunces.

Agree, Newport are taking the piss a bit. Already switched the Mansfield game and now not fulfilling a fixture

 

[AR27]

Stevenage (h) - they’re yet to drop any points, so I imagine they’ll be full of confidence heading into this one.

We still have injuries to key players. Hoping Songo’o might make his first start, but I think this one might come too soon for him. Threkeld could return. No idea where Eisa is - he didn’t even make the bench at the weekend (?). No idea if Sutton’s back fit. I admire Dereks secretive approach, but fuck me it’s hard predicting whose fit and who isn’t.

Cooke sat in midfield at the weekend, and Gareth Evans took up the number ten role. I thought he did alright, but Vernam was immense when he came on - so I think he should start.

GK: Richard O’Donnell

RB: Finn Cousin-Dawson
CB: Paudie O’Connor
CB: Niall Canavan
LB: Liam Ridehalgh

CM: Elliot Watt
CM: Callum Cooke

RW: Alex Gilliead
CAM: Charles Vernam
LW: Lee Angol

CF: Andy Cook

1-0 City (Cook) - att: 13,101

Sutton and Songo'o should be back and I'd expect Sutton to be the one to start. Think we missed his energy on Saturday.

 

[F!RTHY]

Sutton and Songo'o should be back and I'd expect Sutton to be the one to start. Think we missed his energy on Saturday.

Indeed - Simon Parker just confirmed Songo’o, Sutton, Eisa and Evans back for tomorrow. Agree on your point regarding Sutton - he has certain attributes all our other midfielders lack.

 

[hellogregory]

We're still assessing Zach Clough, who has yet to feature for us this season. For the record I don't think he's missed any training and Beech is on about him having ran 5k at the weekend. I imagine he'll make the bench before he starts so wouldn't expect him to start on Tuesday but it won't be a surprise if he features in some way.

With Abrahams getting off the mark at the weekend he'll probably continue up front and the hope is that he can find some goalscoring form. Mellish and Mampala have both had a few chances too without finding the back of the net so we've got players queuing up to get goals it's just hopefully a case of them finding their feet rather than being useless.

Unfortunately you're wrong in thinking he hasn't missed any training. He missed all last weeks training up until he was able to do the running on Friday? (or was it saturday?). But he hasn't been involved in any football based training last week. Hopefully that changes this week, but I wouldn't expect him involved tomorrow night. The weekend at a push but even then I don't think they'll want to rush him back only for him to pull out of the pre match warm up 5 mins before kick off again.

 

[hellogregory]

Judging by todays training pictures, Clough didn’t train today. I’d say that 100% puts him out of contention for tomorrow night and doubtful for the weekend.

 

[kieran_vale]

Judging by todays training pictures, Clough didn’t train today. I’d say that 100% puts him out of contention for tomorrow night and doubtful for the weekend.

Could also be the case he might have trained but were under instructions not to give the game away. Our manager is always very evasive on injuries as doesn’t want to do the other teams work for them. I don’t know if Beech has a similar approach or not though.

This will be a good challenge for us. I was very impressed with Carlisle at VP last season and to be honest I think it was only covid that stopped you getting into the playoffs.

 

[valefan16]

Could also be the case he might have trained but were under instructions not to give the game away. Our manager is always very evasive on injuries as doesn’t want to do the other teams work for them. I don’t know if Beech has a similar approach or not though.

This will be a good challenge for us. I was very impressed with Carlisle at VP last season and to be honest I think it was only covid that stopped you getting into the playoffs.

Some fans get frustrated with DC doing it and not saying but I like that, why tell the oppo our position on injuries?

 

[kieran_vale]

Some fans get frustrated with DC doing it and not saying but I like that, why tell the oppo our position on injuries?

Aye that’s the thing isn’t it. Why would you give the opposition something that would aid them even marginally? Just smart really.

I’m assuming Politic at least for this one will be on the bench to ease him in. It does make the 4-2-3-1 even more appealing to me now though with him as an option.

 

[Vanni]

Judging by todays training pictures, Clough didn’t train today. I’d say that 100% puts him out of contention for tomorrow night and doubtful for the weekend.

Well if that's the case then I can only see a comfortable Port Vale win. What do you reckon HG?

 

[shoddycollins]

Well if that's the case then I can only see a comfortable Port Vale win. What do you reckon HG?

Well he didn't see where our first win was coming from until we play Crawley in September, and thats when we expected Clough would be back already.

 

[shoddycollins]

Aye that’s the thing isn’t it. Why would you give the opposition something that would aid them even marginally? Just smart really.

I’m assuming Politic at least for this one will be on the bench to ease him in. It does make the 4-2-3-1 even more appealing to me now though with him as an option.

Keith Curle used to talk about doing that all the time... that said I can never remember there being any big shocks in our starting lineups where a player who was supposedly injured turned out to be fine.

 

[RLC]

Decent keeper, OK defence, great set of midfielders, lightweight up front.

Sounds like the mirror image of us then.

 

[hellogregory]

Well if that's the case then I can only see a comfortable Port Vale win. What do you reckon HG?

Even with Clough, I still wouldn’t expect to pick anything up against the champions elect.

 

[hellogregory]

Well he didn't see where our first win was coming from until we play Crawley in September, and thats when we expected Clough would be back already.

Think how many we win between now and then will hinge on this new loan striker being good. We’ve created plenty of openings in these 3 games, but only having 2 goals to show for it shows that we need to improve on converting them.

 

[kieran_vale]

Even with Clough, I still wouldn’t expect to pick anything up against the champions elect.

Suppose it must be difficult for Carlisles part-timers to fit this round their regular 9-5 jobs in fairness.

 

[Vanni]

Even with Clough, I still wouldn’t expect to pick anything up against the champions elect.

But tbf I don't believe the Vale fans have uttered the p word this season?

 

[kieran_vale]

But tbf I don't believe the Vale fans have uttered the p word this season?

I’m sure there is some post that someone will pull up to disprove this but there’s not exactly been any HMS piss the league type stuff this year from anyone. That is unless you want to count predicting us to make the playoffs though I’m not sure that’s really outlandish to think we could have a shot at that as do countless other clubs?

 

[hellogregory]

Suppose it must be difficult for Carlisles part-timers to fit this round their regular 9-5 jobs in fairness.

Think their employers are pretty good in that respect. Most are finishing at 1pm tomorrow, a few have even been given the full day off.

 

[hellogregory]

But tbf I don't believe the Vale fans have uttered the p word this season?

Not much to be fair this season. But they have previous summers, and there’s been a lot of positivity surrounding their transfer business, so I’m going on the assumption that this WILL be their year.

 

[Agombar stool]

Sounds like the mirror image of us then.

Shake on a draw?

 

[Monkey Tennis]

Barrow 3-0 The Jacob Rees Mob

Dimitri Sea back from his hamstring-related concussion to bag a hat-trick. Mark Cooper to still be miserable and say we were shit.

 

[valefan16]

Not much to be fair this season. But they have previous summers, and there’s been a lot of positivity surrounding their transfer business, so I’m going on the assumption this this WILL be their year.

Last year there was huge expectation from the fan base due to the way we were going when covid hit the season before and the transfer business we had done… but it wasn’t exactly just Vale fans tipping us for promotion either we were one of the favourites.

This season we’ve made some excellent signings on paper but a 63% player turn over so not expecting immediate miracles.

 

[Huntsman94]

Shake on a draw?

I’d happily take that!

 

[Boz]

Sounds like the mirror image of us then.

Even a habitual pessimist like me would put our defence in the fairly good category, better when Macdonald returns to fitness.

 

[RLC]

Even a habitual pessimist like me would put our defence in the fairly good category, better when Macdonald returns to fitness.

I agree, but you are not allowed to say stuff like that on here.

I would say very good actually.

 

[GTFCfish]

Well there's not a chance in hell we will score.

Well as you say this before every single game are you predicting that you will not score a single goal all season?
That would be quite some achievement.

 

[Mighty Mornflake]

Not much to be fair this season. But they have previous summers, and there’s been a lot of positivity surrounding their transfer business, so I’m going on the assumption that this WILL be their year.

Vale won't be troubling the top end of the table too much this season - I think a good season for them will be to sneak into 10th perhaps, if the sun,moon and stars align etc.