Source: Northern_Echo
Gall or nothing for new striker
KEVIN Gall was one for four new arrivals at Darlington this week and manager Colin Todd wants his 17th signing of the summer to grab what could be his last chance.
When the season kicked off the 27-year-old was without a club. But after training with Quakers for a couple of weeks, Todd has offered Gall a noncontract deal and with it the chance to revive his career.
He will play at Port Vale today alongside fellow new boys Nathan Porritt, Jordan Cook and Rikki Bains, who all this week also became part of Todd’s varied squad.
It constitutes a collection of tried and tested senior pros, inexperienced youngsters and those drinking in the lastchance saloon. Gall, admits Todd, falls into the final category.
His career has dipped since being a regular scorer in the Yeovil side that won two promotions, swiftly moving up to League One from the Conference.
At the end of last season he was released by Carlisle after a campaign that featured less than fruitful loans with Lincoln and Port Vale, where he failed to score. At the beginning of 2008 he also had a goalless loan with Darlington.
But Todd hopes the forward can recapture the form he displayed up until 2007, and said: “He has trained with us for a while and he’s got a decent pedigree.
“I remember him playing for Carlisle against Bradford when I was manager and he did extremely well, he caused us lots of problems.
“His track record was good, but some players can get into a comfort zone. He’s probably lost his way a little bit and had a bit of a reality check.
“It’s up to him to take this chance. He’s got an opportunity here to impress and get back on the rails again.”
At the beginning of the season pace was a commodity severely lacking in Todd’s team, but he hopes this week’s arrivals have resolved that issue.
“Gall can give us something different and he’s got pace, which is very important,” said Todd. “Now we’ve got a bit of pace with the two wide players we have brought in on loan, Cook and Porritt, and now Gall too.
“Hopefully Cook and Porritt will kick on and give us another dimension.
“Gall also has a goalscoring record which has been decent at times during his career.”
It was decent during his Yeovil days, but Gall has not notched a league goal since netting for Carlisle on the opening day of the 2007-08 season.
That match featured Paul Arnison and Jeff Smith, now Gall’s Quakers team-mates, but neither will play today.
Right-back Arnison is injured, while Smith has lost his place to Porritt, a highly-rated winger who arrived on loan from Middlesbrough on Monday.
He was joined 24 hours later by Cook, on loan from Sunderland.
Both made their debuts in Tuesday’s defeat to Crewe, and Todd said: “People talk about Porritt and what he can do. Now he has an opportunity to show myself and others what he can do.
“He needs to realise that playing football is not all about what you do when you have the ball, it’s about what you do when the opposition has it too.
“If we could have the ball the entire match we would control the game, but football is not like that.
“But we have to feed the ball to him better. There were times when we could have given him the ball a lot earlier to let him make things happen.
“Cooky is just a young boy.
Him signing might be a disappointment to Mark Convery, but we can’t afford to have disappointed players because we’re all in this together and we’re all working to achieve something. I have to make decisions and they have to accept that decisions are made for a purpose.
“The players are in good spirits, and the message I am getting over to them is that we are not far away.
“We have to improve in terms of our attacking play, we have to retain the ball better and get more crosses in, more crosses of quality.
They’re the areas we have to improve on.”
Darlington and Port Vale are two of six League Two sides without a win, but the Valiants are also yet to score from open play as their only league goal was a penalty.
