Chilvers reaction to late action at Rochdale
Vale defender Liam Chilvers endured a roller coaster of emotions after scoring for and against Rochdale in the 2-2 draw at the Spotland Stadium.
A defensive mix-up saw Chilvers header the ball back past goalkeeper Chris Neal into an empty net. The former Arsenal trainee then looked to have redeemed himself when he headed in a late Chris Shuker corner.
With moments left on the clock and other League Two results going Vale’s way the Valiants looked to be going up however Rochdale’s Jason Kennedy’s injury-time header meant Vale had to settle for a well-earned point.
Burton Albion’s late winner against Plymouth Argyle meant a win still wouldn't have been enough.
Chilvers said: “The emotions are a bit all over the place.
“The first goal, those things happen in football it’s not nice, it’s my fault, Neal has called and I've heard it late.
“Last time I looked he was there, the next minute he wasn't, so that was disappointing.”
Centre-back Chilvers believed he had won it late-on but admitted he wasn't supposed to go up for the late corner.
“I wasn't going to go up for the corner but I bullied Purse into staying back and Shuker has taken it and I thought he was going to stick it near post and I've gambled on it and it hit the back of the net.
“We thought it was all over then within a few minutes it has all changed again.
“I think there was last minute goal somewhere else which changed things but we would have still liked to have put 3 points on the board,” said Chilvers.
In a frantic 2 minutes Vale were up, then not up then definitely not up and the defender believes that if they take care of themselves next Saturday they won’t need to divulge into any complicated maths.
He said: “There was no clock here and the fourth official hadn't put any extra time up so we had no idea how long was left. It was disappointing to find out there was only 30 seconds left when they scored.
“It felt like minutes watching it go into the back of the net, then it went past Neal and we were all hoping he was going to get a hand to it.
“We are almost there, we've just got to make sure we get the result next Saturday or results go our way on Tuesday.
“It’s too difficult with all this maths I don’t know what’s going on."
He added: “We will keep ourselves level-headed and look forward to Saturday.”