BOWERS: BOSS MOORE IS STILL SEARCHING TO FIND RIGHT VALIANTS FORMULA
PHIL Bowers believes Port Vale have too many players and that boss Darren Moore is, “still trying to work out his best team and who he can rely on.”
The BBC Radio Stoke presenter/ commentator also expressed his surprise that long-servant Nathan Smith wasn’t involved at Newport County last weekend.
On Darren Moore’s squad, when asked if the squad is too big, Bowers replied: “In a word, yes. He’s got way too many, it’s 31 professionals so he could put out 22 players on the pitch and still have a stack of them left over. “So that tells you a lot about the recruitment. I know that the club in the summer wanted to try and get players in before they got players out because otherwise they would have missed out on targets. “That’s fair enough. That’s an attitude to be applauded because they haven’t done that in years gone by, they have missed out on players and they’ve ended up shorthanded.”
He added: “I think they really did struggle to get a few out of the door during the transfer window, purely because of the money and the contracts they were allegedly on and other clubs not being able to get near to them.
“So I think there are one or two they would have liked to move on and haven’t had the option to do so. The other thing you have to bear in mind is the transfer window for the National League and North and South is still going to be active and that will open them up to loans for the younger players.
“That will reduce it but it’s not really a mitigating factor in having such a massive squad. “And then when they are making changes as they are, and having injuries as they are, it does make it harder to gel and create those relationships that the manager has talked about because quite simply you’ve either not got enough fit players or too many so you are trying to give them all game time.” On finding the right team, Bowers reasoned: “They are a long way off being what they are capable of being and managers will have an idea in their head who they can rely on and there will be one or two if they do have to put them in they are not 100 per cent sure of how they are going to do. “Nathan Smith is the big surprise for me not being involved [at Newport]. He played 90 minutes in the week [against Wolves Under21s] and he looked pretty good. “He’s obviously got ability at this level, he’s part of a promotionwinning side at this level and the club’s longest-serving player. “So I think the manager is still trying to work out who he can rely on because he’s seen the best and worst of some of the players in the space of five [league] games.”