The Vale have accumulated five points from a possible nine across their last three matches, and assistant manager Dave Kevan is satisfied with what he's seen from the players over the last week.
The Valiants added another point to this season’s tally following a 2-2 draw against Macclesfield yesterday afternoon, and although Kevan admits it may have been a missed opportunity for three points, the Vale assistant manager was pleased to see the squad put in maximum effort once again considering the busy schedule of late.
Askey and Kevan opted to only make the one change to the line-up yesterday afternoon, and Kevan stresses the reasoning behind that was because of the encouraging recent performances.
It’s now five unbeaten for the Valiants with still only one loss at home in the league this campaign, and the Vale assistant manager emphasises that he hopes the players can keep repaying the fans terrific support.
“We do feel that at home we expect to win games, and obviously we’re disappointed that we’ve only taken one point, having said that after going 2-1 down, arguably we may have taken it. We’ve been pleased with the level of the performance, pleased that obviously we've managed to get that amount of points, but it’s probably an opportunity missed today.
“I think they looked tired, but you expect them to look tired during a football game. You want them to put everything they’ve got into it and they done that again today, we possibly could have changed it today, but we felt that the level of performance has been that encouraging, and we didn’t want to disrupt that.
“We’re obviously hard to beat here, the results show that and prove that, we’re always confident playing in front of our own fans, the backing they gave the lads today was fantastic again and hopefully we can keep repaying that."
Cristian Montano picked up his second Man of the Match award in a row for his performance yesterday afternoon, and Kevan had high praise for him as he continued to make that left-back spot his own.
Montano has played the majority of his matches at full-back since the injury of Adam Crookes, and the Vale assistant manager was delighted with the way he recovered from his error against Mansfield on Boxing Day.
David Amoo has recently started to recapture the form he showed throughout the opening weeks of the campaign, and after scoring his third goal of the campaign yesterday, Kevan was delighted to see him back to his best.
“He [David Amoo] seems to have got that early season form back and we’re delighted with that obviously because he’s a big player for us and he’s a major threat, and for him to get that goal today was very pleasing.
“I think that Monty [Cristian Montano] has been fantastic at left-back, I really do, not only in terms of going forward and creating opportunities and being a threat, but defensively, we all make mistakes, every player on the pitch will make mistakes and Monty gets on with it thankfully.
“I’m delighted for him that the supporters and everyone else has seen the type of player he is and the qualities that he has."