Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Leeds United
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
On the evening of 18th May 2016, an announcement made by BBC Radio Stoke sent forums of the black and white contingent of Stoke-on-Trent cascading into chaos, with the news that manager Rob Page was set to quit the Vale Park hot-seat to join League One rivals Northampton Town. The Cobblers are fresh from promotion from League Two with their own manager Chris Wilder having left for the vacant Sheffield United post.
The League One newcomers have moved quickly, swooping in for the Vale boss and have successfully managed to tempt the Welshman to Sixfields. His appointment as Cobblers boss was made official in a Press Conference this afternoon, confirming the fears of Vale supporters everywhere which had built up the previous night. The announcement and his hasty unveiling as Northampton’s new manager was greeted by confusion, dismay, shock, anger and quite remarkably even sympathy from some sections of the Vale support.
Page had been in charge at Vale Park since 2014, when he stepped up from his role as assistant manager to take the reins from Micky Adams, with the Valiants adrift in the League One relegation zone. He guided the club to the safety of an 18th placed finish that season before a 12th place finish in 2015/16.
Page however has had his budget cut by Chairman Norman Smurthwaite for the second year running, and the timing of his departure is far from ideal, with the club having recently released Page’s retained list for next season. Questions will now surely be asked as to what went on behind the scenes as to why Page was offering the players contracts, under the pretence that their manager would indeed still be there when they report back for pre-season. With cuts to the budget imposed by the chairman, and the manager now on his way, Vale supporters are right to be concerned about which of their out of contract players if any, will now sign on the dotted line, or whether their former coach will return to cherry pick his former group of players with offers of a move to the M1.
Page’s departure also comes as a huge surprise after repeatedly speaking to local media regarding his , with the aim of being solid contenders for promotion to the Championship by 2018, and his sudden and rather spontaneous exit at seemingly the first opportunity has sent out shockwaves which have reverberated throughout the club.
The fate of Page’s backroom staff will also be cause for concern. Performance coach John Harbin has already followed Page to Sixfields, and assistant manager Paul Bodin could be heading out of Vale Park also. The club however has received a boost in that goalkeeping coach Dave Timmins will remain part of the backroom staff. But with an exodus of the majority of the club’s management team a huge possibility, Chairman Norman Smuthwaite will have to move quickly to bring in a replacement in order to ensure the club will have a team of coaches in place to conduct its summer transfer business and provide some idea to the club’s out of contract players regarding who will be managing them if they sign, or else another summer of turmoil and uncertainty at Vale Park will surely be on the cards. Anxiety already grows amongst supporters as to who else may be coming and going over the coming months amongst the playing staff.
The surprise is that despite the fact the Cobblers are well backed, with Chairman Kelvin Thomas having guided them from administration to stability, and overseen their promotion, Page has left Vale Park for a historically smaller club. A club which for the past three years bar this one- their promotion campaign- has also boasted smaller average attendances.
Yet money may have talked for the young coach, possibly wanting to try his hand with a chairman who would back him with a competitive budget, rather than continue limiting his resources. Indeed, Vale Chairman Norman Smurthwaite has been a cause of much controversy since taking sole charge at Vale Park after with his former business partner Paul Wildes in 2013, with whom he initially purchased the club and led the Valiants out of administration in 2012. Some supporters have been left baffled by his poor public handling of former player Tom Pope’s contract situation prior to his departure, making it clear to local media that the player would before he’d even sat down with the forward to negotiate his contract.
Other supporters have also criticised his comments in the media regarding this summer’s budget cuts in the midst of the campaign; comments which were “unwelcome”. Right back Ben Purkiss, one player who will be under contract for next season was also the “destabilising effect” that this had on the squad, as uncertainty hung over the minds of some players and of course tampered with their ability to focus in matches.
Furthermore, the Chairman has managed to provoke anger from sections of the club’s support after suggesting he refused the opportunity to offer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink- now at QPR- the manager’s post at Vale Park, due to fears of racial abuse from the clubs’ supporters after an FA investigation into during a league match against Bradford City. These comments prompted a fierce backlash from the Supporter’s Club who felt it undermined Port Vale’s family club ethos in Burslem and the wider community. Smurthwaite also alleged to have been physically assaulted outside Vale Park in 2015 by a group of supporters supposedly disgruntled with the situation surrounding Tom Pope and his then soon-to-be departure. No record of such a complaint was found when by journalists from local newspaper, The Sentinel.
Question marks have also been raised over Page’s relationship with the Chairman ever since he head-hunted his manager and engaged in tense discussions on the touchline after Vale’s disappointing 2-0 FA Cup defeat to Exeter back in December, which cost the club a lucrative home tie with Liverpool. Since that day Smurthwaite has angrily put the club up for sale and in February 2016 had allegedly been in talks with a potential buyer under a confidentiality agreement, only for in early March.
The club went back on the market when an American consortium also expressed an interest in purchasing the club, only for Smurthwaite to opt out of selling it to them after having. He subsequently took the club off the market and stated his intention to remain Chairman next season, with the possible future appointment of a CEO to deal with the day-to-day running of the club.
With many out-of-contract players having been offered reduced terms, a withdrawal of resources, drama surrounding the future of the club’s ownership and a chairman prone to a PR blunder, you couldn’t forgive Rob Page for perhaps wanting to try his luck at a club where he will be granted the resources necessary to build the team which he wants, in order to play his brand of football. It is this outlook on affairs which has prompted a more sympathetic approach from some sections of the Vale support regarding Page’s decision to quit.
A dispute behind the scenes over the budget may also have influenced Page’s decision, for it is a very sudden change of heart to move onto pastures new so soon after dishing out the retained list and having had “positive talks” with the Chairman regarding the budget, despite the .
Page’s in and out knowledge of the Valiants will be the biggest concern for Vale supporters. If indeed he has a bigger budget to dip into at Sixfields, he is more than aware of what his out of contract personnel at Port Vale will have been offered, and will undoubtedly have the opportunity to tempt them and his backroom staff to Northampton alongside him. Pit that against remaining at Vale Park and having to try to convince his players to stay on with reduced terms and lesser resources to bring in new recruits, and it is understandable why upping sticks with the possibility of raiding his former club would seem the more lucrative option.
Throughout his tenure at Vale Park, Page has successfully put his stamp on the club’s style of play and overhauled the playing management structure to good effect. His philosophy and methods could prove a detrimental loss to the club unless the much maligned Smurthwaite can get his next managerial appointment right.
Despite the surprise at Page’s departure, there is still the opportunity for improvement, with the Valiants winning 37.6% of their 93 matches in which Page had been in charge. Initial odds are still fluctuating, but bookmakers have Sean O’Driscoll amongst the frontrunners in the list of potential managers for the club; with Steve Cotterill, Uwe Rosler, Dougie Freedman and Chris Powell all deemed potential possibilities.
Current Vale midfielder Michael Brown has also emerged as a strong contender by the bookies, and could well appeal to Smurthwaite if he opts to make an internal appointment. The 39-year old midfielder has graced the Premier League in an impressive career, and has made no secret of his desire to go into management having spent the last two years as a player at Vale Park. His wider knowledge of the club may also work to his advantage, and according to a club statement he has already been added to the first team coaching staff and will work closely with the Chairman in the process of appointing a new manager and in player recruitment for the time being.
The Chairman has also prompted speculation surrounding former Sheffield United and Southampton manager Nigel Adkins, by following him on Twitter. Adkins is currently rated amongst the favourites for the job, rated at 6/1 by BetVictor as of the night of 18th May. The key now is that Smuthwaite appoints a manager who the players will trust, but also has the experience and knowhow to guide the Valiants up the table. Michael Brown would have the trust of the players, but is unproven as a manager.
Appointing Rob Page internally proved a masterstroke, but this time the general feel amongst Vale supporters is that experience may be the key to the Valiants going forward. A manager with a proven track record would not only motivate the players to believe in themselves heading into the new season but also have the eye for bringing in a player on a shoestring budget, something which to his credit Page was capable of doing, Anthony Grant, Sam Foley and Jak Alnwick three excellent examples of his recruitment policy. With Page still having a year to run on his contract, severance compensation will be coming into the club’s coffers and the Chairman must spend this money wisely to ensure the appointment he makes is the right one for the future of the club.
The Valiants can take a lot of inspiration from Staffordshire neighbours Burton Albion, who fresh from League Two sealed promotion to the Championship for the first time in their history on a budget even lesser than what Page had at his disposal. With little money to go out and buy players, and restrictions to loaning players coming in next season, a manager with the capacity to identify and bring in cheap loan targets early, as well as getting the best out of his current crop of players will be equally as important. This is a quality which has been in abundance in the line of coaches at Burton, and yet the interesting thing about two of them, Gary Rowett and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, is that they were brought in as relatively inexperienced managers. For Rowett, it was his first stint in management, for Hasselbaink it was his second, yet both proved successful.
So if a coach with experience and knowhow proves out of Port Vale’s financial resources, there is no reason to suggest the appointment of an unproven manager such as Michael Brown would not work. A key attribute of Rowett and Hasselbaink as former players was a wealth of contacts in the higher echelons of the game, something which almost certainly Michael Brown would have in his arsenal. An internal and therefore budget option, it wouldn’t be surprising if Smurthwaite were to offer him the job, and how Vale could do with such an appointment to bring the Midas touch to the club, the touch of magic which has brought about the miraculous rise of clubs like Burton and Bournemouth in the past.
Whether Norman Smuthwaite opts to recruit externally or internally, the critical thing is that he not only appoints a manager who will get the best out of his players, but one that will be able to work under the constraints of a tight budget as well the willingness to work under a chairman who has been known to be somewhat of a loose cannon. His use of Page’s compensation package may also be one of the most key decisions he makes as owner of the club, but he must also realise that he has to give his next manager the freedom to deal with first-team affairs without interference from upstairs.
With an exodus of Page’s players a possibility, Smurthwaite must move quickly to not only give the club the best chance of tying down the nucleus of Page’s promising squad, but to also ensure some stability over the most key summer yet for the future of the club. This stability- both on and off the pitch- must be the priority for the Chairman right now and will prove critical to the immediate and long-term future of Port Vale; stability within which a new manager may attempt to build a dynasty, stability which this football club desperately needs and that its supporters crave; many of them still reeling after a tempestuous 24 hours.
Keeping the core of the squad together was always going to be the priority for Page, and a huge factor in whether the club would find itself progressing towards a promotion push or regressing toward a relegation dogfight. The ball is now in Smurthwaite’s court. Only time will tell as to whether or not all of Page’s hard work will be allowed to go with him, and where the club will end up in consequence.
Featured image: All rights reserved by