Port Vale reserves hit Wrexham for six yesterday as Sam Foley made his return to Vale action.
The Vale number 11 played 45 minutes after his long stint on the sideline, and did not take long to make up for lost ground, scoring within 20 minutes.
Since Foley last played for Port Vale against Oxford back in October, the club has been the victim of change with manager Bruno Ribeiro resigning on Boxing Day and assistant manager Michael Brown taking over the reigns.
The midfielder spoke exclusively to Valiant PlayerHD about his take on the changes at Vale Park: “Looking in it has been difficult. The team were not in a great place when the manager left but when you are not playing it is difficult to have your say.”
He continued: “For me personally, I find it difficult to put my input across. So for me it was a case of sitting on the outside and seeing how everyone was dealing with it.”
However, the 30-year old was not surprised that these changes happened as he explains the inevitability of change in football clubs: “Football changes quickly, every club I have been at there has been a big turnover of personnel and players and management in the club. As a player you just have to get your head down, be professional and work on what you have to do.”
“It happened at this club and will happen at this club again at some point, so as a player you can’t affect that sort of thing”, he added.
From watching on the outside, Foley thinks that the changes that Vale are currently going through are positive: “Michael Brown, since he has come in has been brilliant, he has let everyone get on with it as well as getting his ideas across. Since I have been back in training it has been totally different. For me that is good because I need as much fitness as possible.”
With the majority of the change behind Vale, the ex-Yeovil man thinks that the squad have enough about them to make a surge up the table in the second half of the season: “In this division, if you string a few results together then the table changes. We have had a little slump but things didn’t change too drastically. We may have lost ground on a few teams above us but we have not been sucked into anything that is dangerous.”
“If we string a few results together, which I certainly feel we have the ability to do, certainly in the last few weeks we have looked a different side. Obviously Michael is going to have an effect on the players, but he needs a bit of time to put his ideas forwards, it will not happen over night. Then we can begin looking upwards.”