Port Vale Fans Panel special – last season was shambolic, it’s a huge summer and Vale need to focus on things on the pitch

In a bumper end of season special, we ask the views of four fan panel members on the season just gone, the retained list and the season to come… prepare yourself for some robust opinions and lots of areas for the club to improve…

The questions

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How would you sum up last season?

Pete: The whole season was potentially a car crash waiting to happen following avoidance of relegation the season before and no substantial striker recruitment, sadly this is how it panned out. It all started in January 2023, or shall I say it became apparent then with the shambolic window and panic signing of Taylor. Lots of summer recruitment but no meaningful striker additions left me doubting affairs. The 7-0 at Barnsley certainly spoke loud and clear. Three or four of the young lads did not start for example. A ‘new’ manager with a new squad does not lose 7-0 on day one! A decent spell followed down largely to Crosby, Ollie Arblaster and Alfie Devine. This came to an end with the Middlesbrough defeat.

Lurching into January and the imminent departure of Crosby resulted in a shambolic window and tame end to the season. I can only assume Andy Crosby told Dave Flitcroft exactly what he thought. Bringing in Darren Moore at this time was the action of a misguided hierarchy.

When all said and done I, like many others were expecting much more than he delivered, his squad or not. He, like us all, knew the hand he was dealt squad wise. Issues off the pitch with ticketing, closure of the ticket office, Paddock restrictions and facilities (namely toilets) and lack of liaison with supporters has added fuel to the flames for many. As disappointing season as any I have witnessed in 49 years, but for many reasons that could and should have been avoided.

Paul: A shambolic season. The worst in my 44 years on this planet. I wasn’t convinced of the recruitment in the summer but got swept away by the early wins. Looking back we scraped most of those late on. The wheels were falling off early on because they were never on properly at any point!

When we look back at the appointment of a manager with no experience, a Director of Football  who spun a yarn to fans, players and owners alike, the giving of another January window to a man whose job was untenable, to sacking the manager, to the owner embarrassing herself with her open letter backing her Director of Football and then sacking him a week later!, to employing Moore on a 66 month contract and him quoting Dave and how they will have a great relationship. It’s just been a mess. And don’t get me started on “El Presidente.”

The players weren’t good enough. And that’s being kind. The manager and Director of Football were clearly deluded and all fans could see it. The owner got swept away with loyalty.  A sad, pathetic, shambolic season.

Dave: I guess the 7-0 opening day catastrophe should have given us a clue as to what was to come, with the Guardian warning that we’d have a fight on our hands to avoid relegation, with only 45 games to go!  But the season then picked up and followed a pattern that’s been seen before, a reasonable early spell then our form falls off a cliff and never recovers.  And that’s what we got. More of the same.

I think most of us knew fairly quickly that we were lacking the quality to make a good fist of staying up, and so it proved.  The chance to improve the squad and our woeful lack of goals was ignored in the January Window, and then Crosby got the sack.  So the season lurched from one disappointment to another, the only ray of light being the loss of Flitcroft, too late to make a difference. So, overall a very disappointing season, with so many chances to avoid the drop spurned.  And there’s the distinct possibility of more of the same to come.

Steve: This last season couldnt have gone any worse on the pitch with relegation the ultimate failure. It was really frustrating , like watching a car crash in slow motion. You could see what was happening but as a fan were unable to prevent the inevitable from happening whilst Carol seemed oblivious to our downward spiral.

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What did you think about the retained list?

Pete: To me the only players worthy of retaining are:- Garrity (likely to leave), Chislett (likely to leave), Dipepa (likely to leave), Shorrock, Walters, Ripley (likely to leave) and Smith (had a poor season but has earned another go). The rest for varying reasons are not worthy in my opinion. Probably five or six will go by hook or by crook.

Paul: The retained list is what it is. It’s David Flitcroft’s legacy. You give awful footballers with no bottle, two year deals, and yet you let people like David Worrall go because you won’t give him a two year deal, speaks volumes. Letting players like Woz go was probably right IF you upgrade. We downgraded. Badly.

James Wilson not being offered anything but in negotiations with Uche? Is this club a banter club? It’s like binning your steak out of the fridge and deciding to eat happy shopper beans on toast instead.

That being said, I want at least eight of those under contract moved on. The football club’s a mess. “El Presidente” may have to sort it out with his cash. But it’s going to be a difficult summer. We need ten new signings minimum to replace the deadwood, the not good enough and the can’t be arsed brigade that we have in our squad.

Dave: If we were hoping for some inspiration to come from the retained list, we were to be disappointed.  We have so many poor players on our books for another season that I  already fear the worst.  My feeling is that Darren Moore must know we’ve a poor nucleus of players, and that some need to be moved on during the close season.  That will need some money put on the table by the owners.  Will it be there, though?

Steve: The retained list was disappointing but not unexpected with so many players on two year contracts. I hope that the manager aims to move on some of the squad so as to create space for his own players to come in. It could be difficult to move on our failures to other clubs whilst I’m sure the few decent players we have will look attractive to other League One sides. Hard to know what work is going on behind the scenes , only time will tell.

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Where do the Vale need to strengthen?

Pete: Three strikers. No full backs of note or fit enough. A ball-winning centre-back. An aggressive defensive midfielder and playmaker. Two wingers. I’m talking at least ten more players but I can’t see it happening.

Paul: We need a new keeper as we don’t have a back up. We need three centre backs. Debrah and Iacovitti are not good enough. Compare both of those to Conor Hall when we were last in league Two and scraped the play-offs! If they play in a back three with Smith, expect 70 plus goals against us. They are simply not good enough! Oh for another Conor Hall!

We have zero natural full backs or wing backs in the club. It’s frightening. We so need those. We need a minimum two centre midfielders. Three, if Ben (Garrity) goes. Ojo can’t be ars*ed so I don’t think he will be here.

We need four strikers. Dipepa is a shining light. We can’t rely on kids though, all over the park, if those academy kids are thrown in then we’ll go down again. We are going down the wrong road. Too many kids at league One and Two level is a recipe for disaster. We’ve seen it this season. It will happen again next. And it’s not fair on them.

Loft and Uche should never wear the shirt again. Nothing personal other than they are dreadful footballers who should seek a new challenge to revive their careers and make us eat humble pie.

Dave: The fan base is thoroughly disenchanted at the moment and needs some motivating – that means signing a good centre half and at least one proven goal scorer, as a bare minimum.  Other signings really will depend on who eventually stays and who might be sold on.  The loss of Garrity and Chislett, for example, would be a real blow given their importance to the team. We really do need to hope that Darren Moore has the necessary ‘pull’ to bring some quality to the playing staff.

Steve: Personally I think the only three senior players worth retaining are Garrity, Chizzy and Ripley, the youngsters are excluded from all criticism. Mitch, if he stays fit, will do a job and Smithy alongside a dominant centre half should cope with League Two football. Surely we cannot go through four transfer windows without addressing the elephant in the room? We need goal scoring strikers as the top priority.

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What are your views on the manager?

Pete: I’m not impressed to date with tactics, desire and plans of action, which appeared laboured and at times very limited. As I said previously Darren Moore knew exactly what he had at his disposal. He, like the players have not delivered. We have squandered decent leads against weak opposition on more occasions to mention, have stopped playing in a lot of games after 60 minutes, concede too easily whilst not creating any open play chances of any volume or note.

Darren Moore has to shoulder some of the responsibility but we all know the key issues date back to January 2023. It remains to be seen if Moore is the man to change the direction of the club. I do hope so but have doubts at the moment.

Paul: Now here’s the thing….. It HAS to be a massive rebuild and ship out a lot of under contract players, because if we don’t, he hasn’t got a tune out of them so far so he won’t at a level below. It’s painfully obvious these players, the majority, are heartless, gutless, not good enough rubbish.

The manager has walked into an absolute car crash of a squad. He needs funds to sort it out. He needs his squad. But this is the mess that Flitcroft made, the fans saw it 12 months ago, and yet Darren walked into the club lauding Flitcroft! I think he was sold a vision by a man who clearly had brainwashed the higher powers in the club and then it all unravelled. And I now believe there must be some sort of plan to help him out in getting his own players in, because he’d be walking if not. Give him a chance with his own team. The problem is, after this last three months, his honeymoon period will be probably 8-10 games. He simply has to hit the ground running.

Additional thought: I watched him at the fans forum and now I’m sold on Darren Moore. I thought he was superb last night and I’m much more excited for the future and he’s obviously in charge of the football side and will take no prisoners. I trust him to get a squad together for a promotion challenge next season. 

Dave: I don’t know what to make of our new manager.  He comes across as very laid back and verbose in his interviews, and I don’t get the same feeling of urgency and determination that we saw from Darrell Clarke, which I really liked.  It would be unfair to judge him yet, given the situation and playing squad he inherited.  But a lot of those players are likely to be still with us next season. I just hope that, with some good recruitment and a full pre-season to work with them, including some proper pre-season friendlies this time around, he will be able to turn out a side that will be able to hold its own in League Two.

Steve: Darren Moore has come in and made a minimal impact as far as results are concerned, he had enough games left to keep us up . His points tally has been awful, would keeping Crosby on have yielded any fewer points?  Are this current squad of players that bad that no manager could have kept us up? This transfer window will be crucial in answering that question and we will have to wait to see  what a Darren Moore team looks like.

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How do you think Vale will do next season in League Two?

Pete: Unless there is root and branch change, particularly in the playing squad then I do not believe there is enough to warrant any kind of positive outcome to the season. We could be in freefall. I’d like to think the budget will be competitive and hope that we have enough to hold our own in League Two. A lot depends on recruitment this summer. Failure in this area could be result in a further struggle, but this time to maintain football league status. I’m sorry I can’t be more confident but at this moment in time it’s a wait and see. ‘The proof will be in the pudding’ so to speak.

Paul: Next season. With the squad we have right now… We will be 18th or below. It’s quite scary. These players on the books can’t defend, can’t score, and can’t be ars*d most games. Let’s not forget we won’t be playing Sutton next season as they got relegated. A team we scraped past on our glorious cup run of playing teams we should have beaten anyway.

If I were to try and predict anything, I’d say it’s going to take a minimum of two transfer windows to get us out of this mess. I can’t see one window sorting this out. I hope it does. But I do think people don’t realise the utter mess this football club is in on the pitch. Just because we’ve gone down, doesn’t mean we will come straight back up. We could well be another Forest Green. It’s the biggest summer in the club’s history.

Dave: Realistically, we ought to be able to sit somewhere around mid table next season, but a poor start would be very worrying, given the experience of the last two seasons. I guess a lot will depend on the budget made available, and what support Moore gets in attracting players to the club.  It’s been 60 years since I started following Port Vale FC, and I’ve seen them at the bottom of Division Four a few times – I don’t want to see that again!

Steve: This Vale team has forgotten how to win, so the fewer players that remain the better in my opinion if we are to be successful next season. How we will do depends on retaining the key players and signing two strikers who will do their day job and score goals. Until this plays out it’s difficult to predict what will happen, but entering next season with a strike force of Uche and Loft would fill me with fear.

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Any other business

Pete: Many bridges need to be built with the fan base, many of whom could well vote with their feet. Has the move to the Hamil been a success? Many don’t think so. There appear to be issues surrounding ticketing, toilets, club shop merchandise access (particularly on match days when there are queues for tickets, etc)

At the end of the day for ‘most’ fans – It’s all about what’s going on out there on the pitch that really matters. No more talk of ‘Campus’ and Premier League 2 players, a lot of work needs to be done for me on and off the pitch.

Paul: I’ve listened to many podcasts over the last year or so. And one thing always pops up. From Mark Hughes to Tony Pulis to Sam Allardyce, just let the manager have the say in the running of the football club. Arsene Wenger… Alex Ferguson… They ran their clubs from top to bottom. And yes, I get we are’little old Port Vale’, but I don’t want to ever see another David Flitcroft, who wasn’t our manager but dictated the philosophy, the formation, and the signings. I feel sorry for Crosby in a way but he was weak and let it happen. And he fell on his sword.

I want Darren to be the boss. The man who signs the players HE wants. The man who picks the team. The man who plays the formation HE dictates. The man who has the ultimate say in “all things football”, because if he is not ALL of those things, then it’s his head on the chopping block and we can’t afford to complicate league two football with too many staff above him.

I would also say… ask the player if he’s ok! It worked for 100 years! All this football science crap is producing more injuries throughout every league! It’s another waste of a wage. Football is a very simple game, especially in league Two, made complicated by those who want to be “championship ready”.

Make no mistake, the state of this squad says we will be close to relegation again next season. I hope that the hierarchy sort it out is all we have.

Dave: I know some fans are bemoaning Carol’s interest in working with the local community, but I think that is important work, and also vital in building a solid Port Vale Supporter base.  Getting young people involved in the club, both boys and girls, is vital for the future of the club.

Having said that, however, those supporters already following the Vale have truly suffered in the last two seasons, and really are due something to smile about. They need to see real commitment to the playing side of the club, something that will prove an incentive to remain attached to the club, to buy season tickets and merchandise.  Once supporters lose faith and become disinterested, it is very hard to win them back.

So, that is Carol’s task this season, part of her ongoing learning curve of football club ownership – don’t take supporters for granted. Give them a team to get behind and be proud of, one that will truly play for the shirt.

Steve: Can the focus for the coming season be players with everything else secondary? Also prolific goalscoring strikers are a mustbuy. No excuses. The fans cannot bear another Christmas being told ‘there will be no Santa or presents but don’t worry the Sprouts are great!’ We’ve had our fill of Sprouts!