FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.19: PORT VALE AT HOME

Our opponents

Vale had six years in what is now the Championship until they got relegated at the end of the 1999/2000 season and have never been back. Since then they’ve been in L1 on thirteen occasions and L2 ten times. This is their first season back in tier 3 after a five year stay at the level below.

Coming into this game they sit five places and three points above us in the table but if we were to win we’d leapfrog them. As ever it is tight. The stench of our home form is worse than the odour nearby Thames Water often release on a match day though. Just to recap. Eight league games played so far and just two wins. In the first we had to wait until the 93^rd minute for the only goal of the game. In the second we got away with it against an absolutely abject Burton side when the cross bar saved us.

We will win at the Kassam again one day but Vale’s form suggests it may well not be in this one. They’ve only lost one of their last seven league games and that was to Ipswich. Their last three away games have been victories at Derby and Cambridge followed by a draw at Wycombe.

Like us their filed accounts are of the “total exemption” variety so don’t tell much. At the year-end 30/06/22 their balance sheet carried a red figure of £2.8m and the difference in the P&L figure compared to the previous year showed a loss of about a million quid.

The amount due to creditors within a year was £6.7m with £4m of that owed to related parties. They pay interest at a rate of 0.75% on this.

The club used to be owned by Norman Smurthwaite, one of the best names ever. In 2019 he sold it to Carol and Kevin Shanahan along with the ground too. Good move that.

Smurthwaite had been the owner for six-and-a-half years. He and his then business partner Paul Wildes bought Vale and the ground from the administrators for £1.25m in November 2012. That was the second time in 10 years Vale had gone into administration.

The Shanahan’s started an IT company called Synectics in 1992. It’s largely about fraud prevention. I’m all for that. They’re proper fans who travelled to away games before they made the club theirs.

Oxford United 4 Port Vale 0

Well, I need to state the blatantly obvious here. This was a massive improvement on previous home performances in this campaign. It was the first time we’ve won at the Kassam by more than one goal since 5 March and at last we kept a clean sheet which is really satisfying. However performances by any team are usually nowhere near being flawless and this one wasn’t, although the good far out-weighed the not so good.

I’ve oft bemoaned our dreadful shooting this season but in this ours was respectable whilst that of our visitors was atrocious. If they’d displayed any half decent finishing skills I suspect we’d still be awaiting that elusive shut out.

In the last two games we’d been dozing at the start but here we were well awake from the first blow of referee David Rock’s whistle. That helps enormously and in the tenth minute we were a goal up. Elliott Moore won the ball from behind in a challenge on Ellis Harrison, nicking it before any proper contact with the Vale player who threw himself to the floor. A revitalised James Henry, who spent the time he was on the pitch scampering around as of old, picked the ball up and found Marcus McGuane who made a forward pass to Marcus Browne. Our number 11 immediately drove forward with the ball. It was all so different to the slow sideways, backwards game we’ve seen of late.

I’ve often communicated my annoyance at meaningless shooting from distance. Shooting when there are many defenders blocking the route to goal, shooting when the chances of a goal resulting is incredibly low. However I’m not against it per se. If a player has the technique to test a keeper from way out then why not? That’s what Browne did. Low and hard taking Jack Stevens’ understudy, Aidan Stone, by surprise. Stone should possibly have done better but it was quite a hard one to deal with, the ball coming back off him only to be volleyed low straight back past him from 12 yards out by the alert Billy Bodin.

We nearly conceded soon after. Harrison, who Ipswich once paid three quarters of a million quid for, cannoned a header off the bar which was helped on its way by a slight touch from Simon Eastwood.  Easty is showing really good form in dealing with things thrown at him from close range. It looked as if Gavin Massey would just put the ball over the line when it came down but he didn’t. We had bodies around as we always now seem to, but it wasn’t they who prevented a goal. That was down to Malvind Benning with a hopeless shot. Before the game Vale manager Darrell Clarke had said that his team were more than a match for any side in the division. Not with finishing like that they’re not.

A few minutes before the half hour mark we doubled our lead. Elliott Moore in the centre-circle played a Vale clearance back into their half. Lewis Bate, who was tidy all afternoon, headed a pass to Stuart Findlay who quickly found Ciaron Brown to his left. The ball was then pushed down the line to Bodin. Again none of this turning backwards and heading back towards our own goal even though we were winning. William Forrester, who was marking Bodin, was more intent on removing the yellow shirt of our Welshman than winning the ball. As Forrester did so he slipped flat on his face and claimed a foul. Bodin did well to stay on his feet and his ball into the box was taken by Browne who was bearing down on goal. It was probably a shot he unleashed not the ideal pass it turned out to be for Matty Taylor to convert from inside the six yard box. It was tight but replays show he was onside. So those predatory instincts are still there after all and if he gets the right type of service hopefully the goals will return in abundance.

2-0, serves you right Forrester you cheat – and well done Mr Rock for not falling for such antics.

At two goals to the good I felt really relaxed and very confident based on our defensive acumen. Yes clean sheets have been an issue, (even now only Forest Green have kept fewer) but every league game we’ve lost has been by just a single goal and we’ve not let in more than two in any game, win, lose or draw.  As for goals conceded per game we’re now joint seventh best with a record of 1.11.

Before Sam Long’s injury our established back four was him, Moore, Findlay and Brown. It can be argued that they are all really centre-halves but what they definitely are is proper solid defenders well able to gets their heads onto high balls and willing to put their bodies on the line. None of them will be bullied. In this we won the physical battles. Time and again Harrison tried to back into his marker but Moore would not be moved.

Photo, Simon Jaggs

With Long out we’ve got Djavan Anderson at right back. Our manager says we brought Andersen to the club as a right back / right wing back. To me he looks more of an attacker than defender but was never caught out at the back against Vale. Now that we’ve seen him a few times it’s clear he has something about him. He’s quick and quite direct. That can set a tempo and one thing a defender doesn’t relish is someone running at them at speed. I’d like to think that when Long returns there’s  a regular place in the team for Andersen playing just in front of him.

Pace is so important and Browne has some of that too. With those two at it we look more like the team that had Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes plus Ryan Williams in it last season. Browne makes things happen and can beat players on the run although occasionally does knock the ball too far ahead of himself. That’s forgivable given what he brings overall. His enthusiasm in closing down and trying to win the ball back at times worries me a little. It’s encouraging that he does it but sometimes I think the risk of a booking or possible injury may be a little too high.

Obviously a team that doesn’t let in many whilst at the same time is scoring quite a few will be quite successful. We are now finding the back of the net much more regularly. In the first 11 games we drew a blank four times and only scored a total of nine. In the subsequent seven games we have averaged just over two goals a time and have scored in every game.

No way am I saying we’ve cracked it. If we had lost to Port Vale it would have been correct to look behind us worryingly at the bottom four.  After this win though we’re only five points off a play-off place even though defeats still out number victories.

I’ve now seen most L1 rivals in the flesh and those I have not I’ve had a reasonable look at on TV. Plymouth have looked outstanding and there are a few decent sides near the top but taken as a whole I don’t think this season’s tier three standard is as high as it sometimes is.

If there were any tiny lingering doubts they were completely banished in the 62^nd minute when we got a third. We kept the pressure on after a corner that, despite a couple of attempts, Vale didn’t properly clear. Andersen headed back into the box and Taylor won the next header to keep the attacking pressure live. As the ball came down Bodin came in and took the ball on his chest beating a man as he did so. He had to wait a split second as it bounced nicely back up onto his right foot and with something of an improvised finish as his left was firmly planted gave Stone no chance.

Just four minutes later we got yet another. Henry, who had been caught but did what was necessary to buy a free-kick, bent it in himself. It lacked the usual height but on the bounce was difficult for defenders to deal with. As it rose back into the air off the turf Taylor instinctively bulleted a header beyond Stone who really must have been thinking it wasn’t his day.

The stats for this game make interesting reading. Of our 21 shots, eight were on target, five were blocked and ten were from outside the penalty area. Eleven were therefore from inside the box and that’s where all four goals came from. Of Vale’s 14 shots only two were on target.

That they had slightly more possession than us, had a slightly higher tackle success rate than us, made just about the same number of passes as us, were as accurate with their passing in all areas of the pitch as us and won slightly more duels and aerial duels is totally irrelevant. It’s all about what you do with the ball when you’ve got it and being clinical in front of goal. I don’t think anyone who watched this game can disagree that we were value for a wide goal margin.

Ignoring the penalty shoot-out win over Swansea in the Carabao Cup, this was by far the best experience we’ve had at Minchery Farm this season. Having a healthy crowd and a good away following helps. Walking down Grenoble Road there was so little noise I said to Mrs FV that there can’t be many, if any, grounds where it is so quiet in the surrounding area. That wasn’t the case inside though.

I wasn’t expecting us to crack the 8k mark and although I thought there would be a fair few from Burslem, the 949 that turned up was more than I’d thought would be there.  It would be wrong to tar all their fans with the same brush but they have been known to misbehave a bit and the police must have got wind of something. Either that or they thought it was a good day for a training exercise. I can’t remember the last time I saw so many police horses being ridden around and I’ve never seen so many police on cycles.

Next Saturday when Forest Green arrive in their eco-friendly coach it will be very different. Before then though we’ve got Woking on Wednesday night and after this performance that banana skin has shrunk considerably in size.

The manager and players have rightly got some stinging criticism thus far after many of our home performances but following this Karl and his troops deserve a lot of praise. It is though just one home game but we are unbeaten in five. So impossible not to feel more optimistic after that.