Vale are better placed to make an impact on League One return

PRESEASON is where predictions go to die Two years ago I said I was comfortable with Andy Crosby becoming Vale's permanent manager. That one didn’t survive until new year.

- PORT Vale supporter MARK WALTON looks ahead to the new season...

So I'm going to resist any temptation to claim that Vale will storm the league or that Ben Waine will be the new Steve McPhee.

But, along with most fans, I am cautiously forecasting that we'll manage a mid-table finish with not too much looking over our shoulders at the drop zone.

That's the default position of any supporter of a newly promoted club - no-one wants to be expecting relegation before a ball's kicked - but there are grounds to be optimistic that Port Vale 2025/26 can fare better than Port Vale 2023/24.

Carol Shanahan's recent interviews suggest that we've learned from the lack of preparation, complacency and reliance on loan players that dogged our last two seasons in League One, and that we can at least end this campaign with the same manager who started it, something that didn’t happen back then.