Last Night Tom Pope score his fifth goal in four matches to help Vale to a 1-1 draw against Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park.
Speaking after the match he agreed that the draw was the right result after Vale didn’t perform as well as they know they can, especially after a great win on Saturday against Doncaster.
He does, however, admits that the team is a lot better this season and being unbeaten at this stage is testament to this.
Tom said: “We weren’t at our best, certainly after Saturday’s match, but I think last year we’d have probably lost that, so it’s another point on the board.
“When you have the fans here you want to try and entertain them and play well , but its another point. We’re unbeaten and hopefully we can carry that into Saturday.
“I think the mentality in the squad has changed, we’re a much more hard working side. The wide men certainly work their socks off, I think it’s drilled into them that you can’t always play football and it can’t always be pretty.
“Sometimes you have to grind out a result. We lost 3-1 last year and it was probably quite a similar game. In both games we went a goal up then they put a lot of pressure on us, they never gave us a minute’s peace.
“They’ve struggled recently and obviously their Gaffer’s probably been getting into them over the weekend and they’ve put in a decent performance. They’ll be disappointed with a point, but on the whole we’re quite happy with it.”
Tom felt that even though scoring goals is nice on a personal note, it’s a team game, so winning should always be more important.
He said: “It’s always nice to score goals, that’s what you’re there to do. It was a great ball from Ben Williamson. To be honest it was probably one of the only decent balls we put in all game.
“We didn’t really turn as much as we did on Saturday. That’s why we did so well against Doncaster because we got into midfield and turned them around for Ben’s pace and then created a lot of chances. But today, we only did it once first half and then in the second half it was pretty similar.
“I’m always delighted to score goals but I’d have been happier if I hadn’t, but we’d got the three points.”