‘VALE RECRUITMENT HAS BEEN NOWHERE NEAR GOOD ENOUGH’

PORT Vale keeper Scott Brown says that player recruitment has been ‘nowhere near good enough.’

The 35-year-old remains a key player for a side that find themselves fourth from bottom of the Football League ahead of this afternoon’s game at leaders Cheltenham Town.

Brown, who is in his third season with the club, says recruitment is at least partly to blame for Vale’s struggles.

He is playing under his third manager, having been signed by Neil Aspin in the summer of 2018 before Aspin was replaced by John Askey in February 2019 and then Darrell Clarke last month. The keeper said: “I think the recruitment over the last few years has been really poor.

“I think if I look back to the first game of the season, if all of us here were picking a team, I would say probably 70 or 80 per cent of the players would be players that played in my first game, for Neil Aspin against Cambridge. “That’s not good enough because football moves on, players move on. They get better or worse. The recruitment has been nowhere near good enough.

“That is something that needs to improve. I am sure it will do.” Brown also says Vale’s squad is too big.

He says that has made new manager Clarke’s life more difficult: “We have about 30 players which I don’t think helps. After the Stevenage game, it took about two minutes for everyone to come in. It was like loading into Noah’s Ark or something. It was ridiculous.” Brown, like the majority of the squad, is out of contract in the summer.

He said: “There are a lot of players out of contract, but the club is bigger than my future or any of the other lads out of contract. “Every single player needs to make sure this is a Football League club next year.”w