Quick Port Vale report

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Balham

Balham

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A wasted trip with the first halfbeing among the worst performances I've ever seen from United. However, we looked OK until the first went in but after that we fell apart and were fortunate to go in 2-0 down.

Second half was better but the damage had been done. Sharp forced a couple of brilliant saves from Alnwick but there was no sustained pressure and you never felt like we were going to get back into it.

All in all, it was a dreadful performance and one which raises some serious questions for Adkins to answer.
 



Well done for going. You're a braver man than me going all the way to Port Vale to watch that
 
On the radio commentary it sounded like we took a corner, lost posession, but were then allowed to retake it because some Blades fan lobbed a smoke bomb onto the pitch. Also they had a stonewall penalty turned down and hit the woodwork. Sharp had a couple of great chances, inclusing one from three yards out that no one expected the keeper to save. Edgar appeared to have another mare and was subbed at half time - Kennedy did better. All in all Vale deserved it. They had far more chances and posession
 
Dkc said:
On the radio commentary it sounded like we took a corner, lost posession, but were then allowed to retake it because some Blades fan lobbed a smoke bomb onto the pitch. Also they had a stonewall penalty turned down and hit the woodwork. Sharp had a couple of great chances, inclusing one from three yards out that no one expected the keeper to save. Edgar appeared to have another mare and was subbed at half time - Kennedy did better. All in all Vale deserved it. They had far more chances and posession
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Thats the trouble with radio, you miss things like the blatent hand ball by them in the first half so we should have had a penalty.
Mind you i wasn't there either so my account that says we were robbed is as good as yours;).
You really have to be there to get a proper picture. maybe TV gives some of it.
 
Balham Blade said:
A wasted trip with the first halfbeing among the worst performances I've ever seen from United. However, we looked OK until the first went in but after that we fell apart and were fortunate to go in 2-0 down.

Second half was better but the damage had been done. Sharp forced a couple of brilliant saves from Alnwick but there was no sustained pressure and you never felt like we were going to get back into it.

All in all, it was a dreadful performance and one which raises some serious questions for Adkins to answer.
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That was pretty much how I saw it, we deserved nothing from the game. We played it sideways across the back, with little movement ahead of the defence.

The whole team looked disinterested and Vale closed us down, chased and harried well. Flynn playing wide on the left made no sense to me.

Their Watford loanee Aikpeazu was far too strong for Collins and Edgar, who ludicrously tried to shepherd the ball behind for a goal kick, lost it and then had to foul to stop the cross, unforgivable for an international. I think he may have been injured, but he deserved to be subbed, though there was big competition for three places.
 
Trigger Blade said:
That was pretty much how I saw it, we deserved nothing from the game. We played it sideways across the back, with little movement ahead of the defence.

The whole team looked disinterested and Vale closed us down, chased and harried well. Flynn playing wide on the left made no sense to me.

Their Watford loanee Aikpeazu was far too strong for Collins and Edgar, who ludicrously tried to shepherd the ball behind for a goal kick, lost it and then had to foul to stop the cross, unforgivable for an international. I think he may have been injured, but he deserved to be subbed, though there was big competition for three places.
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I have a horrible feeling that Edgar is no better than what we already had.

UTB
 
Edgar was good for like 2 games....since then hes been garbage. As bad as Collins. We still need 2 centre backs and I would send him back if we can get them in. He is sadly not going to improve us long term.
 
Deadbat said:
Edgar was good for like 2 games....since then hes been garbage. As bad as Collins. We still need 2 centre backs and I would send him back if we can get them in. He is sadly not going to improve us long term.
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Said it a few weeks ago and said it again earlier on
 
That performance today was disgraceful, the spine of the team (Edgar, Collins, Basham, Sammon) isn't strong enough, either physically or mentally. There's virtually no leaders in the team, Collins does it, but paired with Edgar he's not good enough to be in the team, there should be a leader in every department of the team. There's no bite down the centre, and at times at Vale the so called tackling was powder puff, witness their second goal for the perfect example of that.

Another example of how weak and pathetic we are was just before half time when their big coloured forward decided we were going to take our free kick 10 yards further back. No one said a word, let their forward put the ball where he wanted and to compound it we took our free kick from where the Vale player had put it. If there was proper spirit in the team there'd have been 2 or 3 of our players telling him to f*** off, getting the ball off him and taking it from where we wanted. Could anyone imagine Morgan standing for that!
 



robbiez666 said:
wait, did we score from a corner? :confused:
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images
 
I wasn't there so cant fully say more RS but It is a bad loss didnt think it was as bad from what I heard we couldnt handle Ikpeazu ran us ragged 1st half but positive were 7th yes wouldve love to habe been 4th with a win but also dones back he is 1 of our most influential players
 
Was ours the stand to the right? 30 people went ballistic and the rest just stood there going "meh". What a brilliant contrast.
 
diplomat said:
Was ours the stand to the right? 30 people went ballistic and the rest just stood there going "meh". What a brilliant contrast.
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Yes, the Hamil Road end. There seemed little point in going ballistic, the ref could have blown for full time there and then, but chose to allow them to take the kick off and then blew, a bit pointless really.

The opposite Bycars End used to be their kop, but these days, all the idiots gather in the Railway Stand, where that footage was filmed from, their H block, where they can get as close as possible to the away fans for mutual taunting purposes.

As the camera pans round, you can see a group of our lot in the corner, apparently being held back by stewards, as they gamely try to get at the Vale fans. I suspect that grown men, intent on fighting, could somehow have got through that thin cordon if they'd really wanted to, in exactly the same way that they could have done outside afterwards. In my view, 90% of them don't really want to fight, it's all posturing and it's pathetic.
 
Balham Blade said:
A wasted trip with the first halfbeing among the worst performances I've ever seen from United. However, we looked OK until the first went in but after that we fell apart and were fortunate to go in 2-0 down.

Second half was better but the damage had been done. Sharp forced a couple of brilliant saves from Alnwick but there was no sustained pressure and you never felt like we were going to get back into it.

All in all, it was a dreadful performance and one which raises some serious questions for Adkins to answer.
Click to expand...

Really good OP.

I thought we were pressing them all over the pitch early in the game and was hoping we'd turn that into chances and goals, then they scored very much against the run of play.

I've always thought that in other games we've had a chance but about halfway through the second half I said to WHF Jr Sr we weren't going to get back into the game.

Maybe if their keeper hadn't made that save we would have gained momentum but he did and we didn't.

I couldn't really figure out why we were so ineffective. Is it just the speed of our play?

Straight after their second we broke quickly down our right and cut through freely, then Billy scuffed his shot. It was noticeable that this came be side we were more direct and quicker through midfield.

For about ten or fifteen minutes it just became utterly random with an almost total lack of structure. Eventually it settled down to possession but that was only marginally less ineffective.

Afaict the idea with the possession is to get a midfielder on the ball in space and when that happens it can begin to look dangerous; it just doesn't happen anywhere near enough.

It looks like at the moment we're getting worse, not better. Sometimes this happens in a development process as old ways are lost and new ways are learned but I'm not convinced this is happening here.

Plenty of questions. Not many answers.
 
Trigger Blade said:
Yes, the Hamil Road end. There seemed little point in going ballistic, the ref could have blown for full time there and then, but chose to allow them to take the kick off and then blew, a bit pointless really.

The opposite Bycars End used to be their kop, but these days, all the idiots gather in the Railway Stand, where that footage was filmed from, their H block, where they can get as close as possible to the away fans for mutual taunting purposes.

As the camera pans round, you can see a group of our lot in the corner, apparently being held back by stewards, as they gamely try to get at the Vale fans. I suspect that grown men, intent on fighting, could somehow have got through that thin cordon if they'd really wanted to, in exactly the same way that they could have done outside afterwards. In my view, 90% of them don't really want to fight, it's all posturing and it's pathetic.
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My mate did archaeology at uni. I always remember him telling me of evidence that way, way back villages used to get a bit bored and take it in turns to randomly turn up at the next village, stand on a hill and hurl abuse at them and maybe a few stones. No attempt was ever made to engage in actual violence.

Skip forward a couple of thousands years and footy is the excuse to go to the next village and posture a lot.

What was a tweenies (or whatever we call this decade) phenomena from that footage was how many people were filming the battle rather than feytin.
 
William Henry Foulkes said:
Really good OP.

I thought we were pressing them all over the pitch early in the game and was hoping we'd turn that into chances and goals, then they scored very much against the run of play.

I've always thought that in other games we've had a chance but about halfway through the second half I said to WHF Jr Sr we weren't going to get back into the game.

Maybe if their keeper hadn't made that save we would have gained momentum but he did and we didn't.

I couldn't really figure out why we were so ineffective. Is it just the speed of our play?

Straight after their second we broke quickly down our right and cut through freely, then Billy scuffed his shot. It was noticeable that this came be side we were more direct and quicker through midfield.

For about ten or fifteen minutes it just became utterly random with an almost total lack of structure. Eventually it settled down to possession but that was only marginally less ineffective.

Afaict the idea with the possession is to get a midfielder on the ball in space and when that happens it can begin to look dangerous; it just doesn't happen anywhere near enough.

It looks like at the moment we're getting worse, not better. Sometimes this happens in a development process as old ways are lost and new ways are learned but I'm not convinced this is happening here.

Plenty of questions. Not many answers.
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I'll be interested to see what Bergen Blade says on the defending – looks a right mess on the Sky highlights. First goal, Edgar ends up pulled out wide right, Freeman rather than cover Edgar in the middle occupies a nothing area between him and the box. Second goal, Collins is pulled out of position from the throw-in, isn't strong or quick enough to keep up with their striker and Howard looks like he might have a chance of getting a strong hand on the shot but doesn't (he may have been poorly sighted). Both look like typical bits of basic defending were lacking.
 
Trigger Blade said:
Yes, the Hamil Road end. There seemed little point in going ballistic, the ref could have blown for full time there and then, but chose to allow them to take the kick off and then blew, a bit pointless really.

The opposite Bycars End used to be their kop, but these days, all the idiots gather in the Railway Stand, where that footage was filmed from, their H block, where they can get as close as possible to the away fans for mutual taunting purposes.

As the camera pans round, you can see a group of our lot in the corner, apparently being held back by stewards, as they gamely try to get at the Vale fans. I suspect that grown men, intent on fighting, could somehow have got through that thin cordon if they'd really wanted to, in exactly the same way that they could have done outside afterwards. In my view, 90% of them don't really want to fight, it's all posturing and it's pathetic.
Click to expand...

It's all that "bouncing up and down on the spot, while beckoning on the opposition supporters" isn't it.

"come on then!"

I walked through the Police line and through all the Vale fans to get to my car, as I was parked with all the home supporters, right through the middle of them, not one of them said a word (including the Police).
 
diplomat said:
My mate did archaeology at uni. I always remember him telling me of evidence that way, way back villages used to get a bit bored and take it in turns to randomly turn up at the next village, stand on a hill and hurl abuse at them and maybe a few stones. No attempt was ever made to engage in actual violence.

Skip forward a couple of thousands years and footy is the excuse to go to the next village and posture a lot.

What was a tweenies (or whatever we call this decade) phenomena from that footage was how many people were filming the battle rather than feytin.
Click to expand...

At my school we had a hill. Every time it snowed the 6th formers would gather at the top of the hill and the older lads in the rest of the school would try and storm it. It was normally fairly pleasant but you'd get years of stones inside of ice and once someone pulled a knife. The 6th formers always ended up winning. One year the GCSE lads got the hill first, which proved to be a much more violent mistake.

The ridiculous posturing of grown men and wannabe teens is the most pathetic element of modern football. If groups of men really wanted to fight they'd pick a spot well away from the ground, the centre and CCTV and do it. It's all about penis waving.
 
Oh, and I agree, that was one of THE WORST performances by any team calling itself Sheffield United I have ever seen.

First half, we played well for 15 minutes, it was all us. Then all of a sudden it was like Port Vale suddenly realised we were no threat and that we were spineless/gutless. They pushed us off the ball, time and time again;. I don't like pointing the finger at players because everyone can have an off day, but at this point in time I have to say I am stunned that we started Flynn and I am stunned he stayed on for an entire 45 minutes. He was less than useless.

Coutts, playing out wide. I am sure that at Preston and Derby, he played a more central role, running through the middle, maybe I am wrong, but he was no threat at all out wide yesterday. On the subject of "wide", that was a very wide pitch, and yet Flynn and Coutts kept drifting into the centre, so we had no width at all. Why was JCR, a natural "wide man" on the bench?

Back four, rubbish, although at least Wallace and Freeman tried to get forward. Collins and Edgar, dreadful. Vale only had one real chance once Terry Kennedy came on for Edgar. If only that lad could be fit for a season.

Midfield, shocking in the first half, improved when Done and Adams came on. These two players should not be on the bench!

Up front, Sammon was lively but not effective, Sharp forced a good close range save by their keeper, on any other day that would have gone in.

Keeper - I was really impressed by their keeper, he made some great, quick reaction saves. If we had him, we would not be shipping the goals that we are, he was their man of the match for me.

We ended up with Howard launching the ball at Sammon, time after time after time, because midfield were not good enough to bring the ball forward. Once Vale realised this, they simply put two men on Sammon. Basham was awful, but at least he got his usual yellow card, so at least he is consistent with some things.

We keep saying that "this must be a wake up call", after every defeat, but this one really MUST be the wake up call. We won't make the play offs playing like this.
 
robbiez666 said:
At my school we had a hill. Every time it snowed the 6th formers would gather at the top of the hill and the older lads in the rest of the school would try and storm it. It was normally fairly pleasant but you'd get years of stones inside of ice and once someone pulled a knife. The 6th formers always ended up winning. One year the GCSE lads got the hill first, which proved to be a much more violent mistake.

The ridiculous posturing of grown men and wannabe teens is the most pathetic element of modern football. If groups of men really wanted to fight they'd pick a spot well away from the ground, the centre and CCTV and do it. It's all about penis waving.
Click to expand...

If you really want to fight, go up and see the lads at Manor Boxing, put the gloves on and get in the ring, one-on-one.

Wonder how many would do that?
 



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