The Valiants are on the road on Saturday as we take on Notts County and Darren Moore’s side will be backed by more than 2000 of you who are making the trip to Meadow Lane.
The Valiants come into the game on a six-game unbeaten run, which continued following a 1-1 draw with Colchester United on Tuesday night. Jesse Debrah gave Vale the lead with a powerful header ten minutes into the second half, before Colchester levelled in the 90th minute through Samson Tovide.
Gaffers Thoughts
Here’s what gaffer said following Tuesdays draw:
“That’s the most disappointing and frustrating thing – that we’ve not come away with three points.”
“I thought we were dominant. You have to look at Colchester, they came and tried to make it really hard for us.”
“It was just a matter of keeping concentration and doing your jobs. So, for the goal to come against us as late as it did is frustrating. I feel it is two points dropped. As I have said to the boys in there, ‘yes be disappointed with the goal but let’s learn from it.”
Darren Moore also spoke ahead of this weekends trip to Meadow Lane:
“We look forward to every game, obviously to go to Meadow Lane on Saturday is a lovely arena to go and play your football. We’ll bring the energy because we have a full away allocation, which is brilliant."
“You’re going to witness two teams playing real good football, real attacking football, so it’ll be a complete different game to what we had on Tuesday.”
“They’re going well, we’re going well. They’ve picked up four points out of the last two games, we’ve picked up four points from the last two games. So, both teams are really in the ascendancy and that’s credit to both teams.”
“We’re really looking forward to the game, the players have recovered and we’re ready to go.”
The Opposition:
The Magpies have made a great start to the season. They currently sit in 2nd place on 18 points. They come into the game off the back of a 2-0 win against Carlisle United in midweek. Prior to this win, they had won five out of six league games.
At home this season, Notts County have played four, lost one and drawn one. Their only home loss came against Gillingham who currently sit top of the league.
Who’s in charge:
43-year-old Stuart Maynard is the current manager of Notts County. Maynard joined the club in January 2024 when Luke Williams left to join Swansea City. Since making the move to Nottingham, Maynard has managed 30 games in which he’s won 11, lost 12 and drawn 7.
Before joining The Magpies, Maynard was in charge of Wealdstone United for three seasons where he guided them to their highest ever National League finish when they finished 13th in the League.
Player to watch - Dan Crowley
With last season’s League Two player of the season, Jodi Jones out until the new year. County will be relying more on Centre midfielder Dan Crowley to continue pulling the strings.
So far this season, Crowley has been his sides standout player with three goals and three assists in the eight league games he’s played. The central midfielder picked up where he finished last season where he scored 16 goals and got 11 assists for his side.
Another player to keep an eye out for is Gambian Striker, Alassana Jatta. The 25-year-old has scored five goals and got two assists so far this season. He comes into the game in a rich vein of form after finding the net in his last five games. With Jatta and former Vale loanee, David McGoldrick on their books, it makes for a formidable strike force.
Fixture Throwback
The only goal of the game in the 7th minute when Mark Marshall pounced on a defensive mix up before rolling the ball into an empty net. For the next 83 minutes Vale defended for their lives and through a mixture of a handful of Chris Neal saves and some poor finishing, Vale managed to hang on for a big three points in Nottingham.