TEAM PREVIEW: Port Vale – Phil Sproson fears his former club will struggle again

 

Rob Page just managed to keep Port Vale’s heads above water last season, but the departure of striker Tom Pope will make that even more difficult this season. Supporters will hope the club can start looking up rather than down once the season kicks off.

Last Season: League One (18th)

Manager: Rob Page

 

Squad

GKs: Chris Neal, Sam Johnson, Ryan Boot
DFs: Adam Yates, Carl Dickinson, Ryan McGivern, Richard Duffy, Freddie Veseli, Nathan Smith, Aziz Deen-Conteh, Ben Purkiss, Remie Streete, Lewis Bergin
MFs: Chris Birchall, Colin Daniel, Michael O’Connor, Michael Brown, Byron Moore, Mark Marshall, Ryan Lloyd, Edo Andoh, Sam Foley, Anthony Grant, Sam Kelly, Chekaine Steele, Billy Reeves
FWs: Louis Dodds, Achille Campion, Uche Ikpeazu, Jonny Kapend

 

Transfers

In: Sam Foley (Yeovil Town), Ben Purkiss (Walsall), Anthony Grant (Crewe Alexandra), Sam Kelly (Norwich City), Remie Streete (Newcastle United), Uche Ikpeazu (Watford – Loan)

Out: Kaid Mohamed (Released), Alex Nimely (Released), Tom Pope (Bury), Chris Robertson (Ross County), Chris Lines (Bristol Rovers), Ben Williamson (Gillingham)

 

First Six: Crewe Alexandra (A), Gillingham (H), Swindon Town (A), Doncaster Rovers (H), Bradford City (A), Millwall (H)

Likely Lineup:

 

A word from…Phil Sproson

On the unpredictability of the football league It’s certainly like that, I started in Division 4 and then moved up to 3 and then up to 2, it is relatively the same now except the name has changed.

There’s a huge change when you go up the league, the teams are better organised, they don’t give the ball away. Certainly when I played in cup games against top division sides, the first touch would be quality, the second touch would be quality and they’re already aware of what they’re going to do next.

Down the leagues the players take a little more time to get the ball under control and might take a bit longer and dwell on what they’ll do with the ball next.

On family links with the club We’ve got a lovely statue of the three of us outside the stadium, there’s a huge family pride with Port Vale, you speak to anyone around the club and they’ll know the Sproson name and link it to the club.

I do follow them, I still work in football as an agent, I’m always at games and if I can take a Port Vale game in I will if I get the chance.

On the new season The biggest danger they face this season is the loss of Tom Pope and how you replace his goals. Without Tom Pope last year and the year before the club would have been relegated.

I wouldn’t say they’re a one man team but they’ve been very reliant on his fire power and unless they get a couple of players in it’s going to be a real struggle of a season for us unfortunately.

On Rob Page I think he’s done a great job, he stopped the rot and took them from the bottom up towards the play-offs and then they went on a really bad run.

But he did galvanise them, he’s dismantled the squad now and made a lot of changes, sadly money made it difficult to keep Pope. The chairman said they couldn’t go over a certain salary and that was that. But I do like Rob, he’s done a good job and I think they needed fresh ideas, it was in danger of going stale in the backroom and you definitely need to freshen things up when that happens.

After a cycle of five or six years of the same ideas, you need something new. New players, new staff and young players coming through.

On moving up It would be huge if somehow, miraculously the club got up to the Championship again. At that point I think the chairman would have heart failure! He’s new to football and I think he’s had his eyes opened by the expectations that come with football and how much money it takes to run a football club.

I don’t think he quite understood the level of input you need so I think he’d have the fright of his life if they were trying to attract Championship players on a few grand a week, it’s a whole different ball game!

 

The Offside Rule Podcast Prediction: Signings so far don’t scream improvement and the departure of Tom Pope is a huge loss to the club. Whilst fans will hope for an improvement on 18th, it should be another scrap down the bottom unless Rob Page can provide a miracle.

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