Valiants vs Train botherers

[lordofthepies]

How delightful to wake up to see this scoreline. Well done to the mighty red men.

 

[lordofthepies]

Crewe always seem to be up for it more than us. Probably because we are their biggest derby match.

Only because we haven't played Wrexham or Chester for years.

 

[SRNP]

Also seeing some vale fans on various social media saying we dont use the academy players any more, we played 6 academy players today, 5 of them started. Half our team.....

 

[The Alex]

Ben Garratt, though. Let's appreciate greatness.

Good point timey, brilliant performance by Ben. Very, very talented lad.

 

[Fuzzyvalefan]

Fair play to Crewe, they were the better team in the first half got their goal then defended well. Shows what an improvement theyve made because theres no way they would have held on to the lead and kept a clean sheet at the start of the season when they were shipping goals for fun. For me, the difference looked to be largely down to Tate. Very solid.

We can count ourselves unlucky in the second half as we should have put one of those chances away and to be honest, I think a draw would have been the fair result but it just didnt drop for us.

While I thought both keepers were good I thought certainly our best player was Freddie Vesseli- oozes class on the ball. Makes the odd mistake (ie Chesterfield) but he's clearly a talented footballer and is only a young lad who is improving all the time.

 

[Wootball]

If Pope and Daniel had started that game it might have been a different story on reflection. We've always struggled against Daniel since he left us, and Pope given more than 30 minutes would have scored at some point. I'm a believer in playing ex players against their previous teams personally - obviously Page thinks differently which is fine by me.

 

[valefan16]

Page never changes a winning side even if it's uber negative. Pope was unfit and hadn't even played a reserve match for three months so wasn't likely to start and Daniel I don't think has started a game yet.

Hopefully after yesterday we will stop the negative set up at home and with the Pontiff back surely Page will ditch the 4-5-1 to accommodate him.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

First things first we've defended absolutely heroically and that is down to the calm influence of Alan Tate who is turning Harry Davis into a fantastic centre half and even making George Ray look a competent footballer which is a miracle in itself. Ben Garratt and Jamie Ness were outstanding themselves and James Jones and James Baillie deserve special credit for the way they performed at Vale Park yesterday, great to see two young lads rise to the occasion and put in a very mature performance. Jones looked a class above the useless Michael Brown, the declining Chris Birchall and the anonymous Michael O'Connor. Ajose should have had a hat-trick and Uche caused carnage first half before looking knackered second half but I thought we were very good value for the win.


I think Port Vale are nowhere near what you would call a Top 6 side for this league, they're a competent side who should comfortably stay up at best but they're around there due to the tightness of this league and because they've developed a great level of consistency in earlier months as opposed to sides like us who have only started playing really well since the addition of the likes of Ajose and Uche. Apart from the top four sides and cash strapped Crawley at the bottom who can't buy a win there isn't a lot in it between 5th-23rd in this league and we could easily be sitting in 5th now ourselves had we not had our habitually shite start to the season. Hopefully both sides will be renewing acquaintances with each other next season.

 

[valefan16]

I thought Uche was poor to be honest. Spent most of the game falling over trying to win free kicks than do anything of note. Looked class last season but was a donkey yesterday. He should of caused the goal to be chalked off with a foul in the build up on Robertson.

 

[Crewelad87]

I thought Uche was good, and I don't think he hit the floor once in the 1st half despite being surrounded by about 3 Vale players half the time, his strength for a young lad is unreal, he faded in the 2nd half and I'd agree did go down a bit easy in the 2nd half though. He linked up better with Ajose yesterday aswell, wasn't as selfish as he sometimes is.

I thought it was a great performance from our front two, Ajose's clever runs and Uche'd power was to much for the Vale defence and to be honest its been too much for most league 1 defences since they joined.

Young James Jones was very good as well, probably my motm. Very mature performance, cant really remember him giving the ball away, he gave brown, who's about twice his age a footballing lesson yesterday.

Thought the Police did a cracking job after the game yesterday, very efficient, was a lot of Vale behind the awayvend intent on causing trouble and no doubt throwing bricks at the coaches from the park. But the police soon got them all up the hill and way away, don't think I saw a Vale fan at all on route back to the D road.

 

[TimeyWimey]

I like how Vale say Uche went down too much as if he wasn't targeted by the Vale defence, like he is targeted by most defences. He has had far more productive games but the fact he was on the pitch gave Vale's defence enough to think about and that in itself was all Ajose needed to tot up the chances. The fact our attacking presence evaporates when Uche goes off (and lost us the game last week!) says it all.

Uche is the definition of a rough diamond. He could potentially be a truly good player at a much higher player, he's got to iron out a lot of inexperience, selfishness, poor decision making and wobbler-throwing but he's still young and improving by the week. Depends how Watford handle him to be honest, they potentially have a multi-million pound striker there but poor handling and he could just as easily spend his days in League 1 or 2.

 

[Vale on Trent]

I like how Vale say Uche went down too much as if he wasn't targeted by the Vale defence, like he is targeted by most defences. He has had far more productive games but the fact he was on the pitch gave Vale's defence enough to think about and that in itself was all Ajose needed to tot up the chances. The fact our attacking presence evaporates when Uche goes off (and lost us the game last week!) says it all.

Uche is the definition of a rough diamond. He could potentially be a truly good player at a much higher player, he's got to iron out a lot of inexperience, selfishness, poor decision making and wobbler-throwing but he's still young and improving by the week. Depends how Watford handle him to be honest, they potentially have a multi-million pound striker there but poor handling and he could just as easily spend his days in League 1 or 2.

Why was he knackered after 10 minutes?

 

[Wootball]

Why was he knackered after 10 minutes?

15 minutes from the end he was. Wrestling three players every time he gets the ball for an hour is probably quite exhausting.

 

[darren gregory]

the talk of play-offs made me laugh, lets get this right a team who have to score 2 goals each time to win a game is not nowhere near play-offs, false position and any like minded Vale fan who is not deluded can see that. As for the game a deserved win for Crewe, Page baffles me to be honest and as previous posts i do not like the bloke as our manager, the Pulis of League one. Why has N,Guessan vanished from the scene yet the clearly overweight pudding Birchall has suddenly come into the side. Look at facts Crewe were in the bottom 4 as their weakness is at the back with worst defensive record in our league. What does Page do , one up front and they keep a clean sheet as Vale only decide to turn up for the last 10 mins. Yes we COULD of been 5th but more to the point we are only 6 points off relegation again, even a draw wouldn,t of been disasterous. Not for a minute will we go down but i,m in agreement with the Crewe poster who rightly says on any given day anyone from 5th to 24th can beat each other. Bog off Page with your negative tactics i want to be entertained not bored silly.

 

[RJM]

can't remember the last time we've lost at Vale..it's been a while.

cheers for the 6 points.

thought we rode our luck second half. we looked knackered in the midfield...but rightly so. they all put a big shift in.

Vale couldn't deal with Uche, he is our man mountain! One of Ness's best games in a Crewe shirt as well.

think these loan signings are going to be the difference of us getting relegated or staying up.

Makes me laugh before the game how overly confident Vale are everytime..tinpot Crewe etc. "it's not a Derby..we don't care about Crewe.."

it was your biggest attendance of the season..shows how much you lot care. we should be taking 2K to yours but that will never happen unless its a promotion deciding game. but 1,400 is decent fif you take in to account our home average attendances.

 

[Crewelad87]

Vale chanting " we all hate Crewe scum" made me laugh the most.

Seems to be a lot of hatred for us considering you don't care about us, and it seems to grow each season.

 

[darren gregory]

think these loan signings are going to be the difference of us getting relegated or staying up, same last year other clubs players keeping you up, same again next year i presume.