David Phillips

Attacking Midfielder (L) - Port Vale U18
4 Feb 2028
Friday
Process

Marked for David Phillips

28 Edition

The Port Vale Herald

8 Feb 2027
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match

The wait goes on for Port Vale

11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Match

Chastening afternoon for Port Vale

A 1‑4 beating by Cardiff City was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.

Match

Port Vale are in real trouble now

Position 22, 21 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.

Squad

16 days out for Funso Ojo after a fracture

A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Port Vale will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.

Market

Liam Gordon asks to leave Port Vale

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

The dugout

David Phillips: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Port Vale have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Transfer targets

Patrick Ciurria due for a Port Vale medical

Everything agreed with Monza, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.

Squad

A falling-out at Port Vale

George Hall and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Squad

Words at Port Vale training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rui Costa is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.

In brief