Port Vale suffered their first home league defeat of the season yesterday at the hands of Walsall and manager John Askey is expecting a big response from his players.
The gaffer was left frustrated with the result, in a game that he believed his side could have come away with something from, but admitted the performance wasn’t good enough on the day.
The performance left the boss disappointed as he felt his team didn’t display the ability they possess that had allowed them to enter December without a home defeat in the league.
Despite the loss however, Askey is not letting heads drop, instead calling for his players to put in a big response on the road against Crawley Town this weekend and get back to working towards having a successful season.
The fight and drive shown this season to get results from difficult games has impressed the gaffer and he wants that back in the team from next week.
He said: “Frustrating, we never really got going, it was a game there to be won, it just wasn’t good enough today and even though we didn’t play our best we still should’ve gotten something out the game.
“We just haven’t performed, every game that we play you just have to start again… today if we’d had performed it would’ve topped off a good week for us.
“I’ve said before I get worried when people start saying you’re doing well, because sometimes players get carried away with that, we’ve got to keep doing the same thing week in week out and hopefully one or two will sit up and take notice of it.
“If you want to achieve something you’ve got to really battle… and we’ve got to make sure now that for the rest of the season every time we go out there we give it everything we can.”
The gaffer was dealt a number of blows before the game, as David Worrall and Luke Joyce were both out with suspension and Rhys Browne, who had been in good form lately with a goal and assist in his last two games, missed out with illness.
He was forced to dip into his squad depth for the game, but reiterated the confidence he feels in his players to perform when called upon despite the defeat.
Askey emphasised the need to make sure the team learn from the loss and play the best they can each week as focus turns to Crawley Town and a return to winning ways.
He said: “It [missing players] meant people playing out of position a little bit, but we still have enough to win that game.
“Confidence shouldn’t be a problem because so far, the majority of the season, so far they’ve performed well.
“When we’ve played the top teams we’ve played our best football, but you’ve got to play your best football against every team… we’ve got to learn from it and hopefully we do.”