By Nathan Jackson
August 6 2010

In the 24th and final prediction ahead of the 2010/11 season, I look at the team who I think will win League Two, Port Vale. They're one of the few teams who have seemingly everything going for them at the moment and if they can keep the momentum they had at the end of last season, then they could easily be onto a winner.

I saw Port Vale three times last season and each time they impressed (and won). The first was the 2-1 win at Lincoln in December where the only reason City scored was because the goalkeeper flapped it into his own net. A few weeks later they won 2-1 at Grimsby in a game that could have been far better for the visitors. Infact, it was that moment on that I was convinced City would stay up.

Skip forward several weeks and City made a trip to Vale Park on a very cold February night. City scored an own goal after 20 seconds, it was 2-0 within two minutes and they won a penalty after five minutes.....it was eventually saved. It did become 3-0 after 15 or so minutes and it eventually became four. Any of the small band of City fans who went that night would tell you that the game could literally have ended with a scoreline somewhere in double figures.

For most of last season they had been generally inconsistent but they did enjoy a considerably better second half of the season and they only lost seven games after the New Year, opposed to eleven wins. That included a very impressive 5-0 win at Chesterfield, that game featured a hatrick for Marc Richards.

Richards (left) was Port Vale's leading goalscorer not that most of the division noticed as he wasn't at any of the teams that chased for promotion during the season.

Whilst Lee Hughes, Brett Pitman and Paul Benson were taking the headlines, Richards calmly went about scoring 22 goals for Vale. Only one other player in the Port Vale squad managed to reach double figures in front of goal.

Other than scoring both goals as Port Vale beat Sheffield United 2-1 in the Carling Cup, Richards goals gained Port Vale a massive 21 points.

The former Northampton man is one of just a number of strikers with huge potential at this level, one of the others is Lewis Haldane, who initially arrived on loan from Bristol Rovers a few years ago, and not to forget Louis Dodds, a former Imps loanee.

Dodds was at the Imps in the 2007/8 season and although he didn't score a lot of goals, the goals he did score were spectacular. He's never going to be a great scorer of goals, rather a scorer of great goals. Dodds has already threatened to be one of those strikers who will one day spark into life and he has certainly found his feet at Port Vale, entering his third season there since joining from Leicester.

Micky Adams  (right)is certainly forming a squad that would be considered amongst the best in the division. They have a squad that is full of potential and man for man, you'd rate most of their players amongst the best in League Two.

If Port Vale do go onto the title, it would be a yet another feather in the cap of Adams, whom has been in management since 1996. He first came to people's attentions when he won the Division 3 title with Brighton in 2001 and then got offered the job at Leicester when Dave Bassett moved upstairs at Filbert Street (the ground they were at at the time). Despite tricky financial pressure, Adams secured promotion to the Premiership for the Foxes in his first full season in charge there. He quit Leicester in 2004.

He went on to Coventry and only missed on the Championship Playoffs by a matter of points, he was sacked during the following season. After a rather unsuccessful return to Brighton, he was appointed at Vale Park in May of last year.

In 528 games in management, Adams has won 198 of them, drawing 163 and losing 167. Specifically in the four tier, his record stands at 239 games, 104 wins, 67 defeats and 68 draws, an excellent record.

Port Vale have seemingly everything going for them. They have a manager who has succeded at a higher level and isn't doing a bad job at Vale, they have a decent squad with a proven goalscorer and the form from last season. They are the one club in the division that seemingly has everything going for them and I am confident that they will win the division.

Is it Vale's title for the taking?

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 06/08/2010 22:00

theimps.ka
06/08/2010 22:00

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