Vale striker says Williamson can go far

Tom Pope again praised teammate Ben Williamson following the game against Salisbury Town and says if he can just add goals to his game he will have a good career in front of him.

Williamson again came off the bench and caused big problems with his pace and capped it off with a terrific strike to complete the scoring.

Pope said: “Everybody knows about Ben’s ability – he has all of the attributes, as I have said before, he can go on and play as high as he wants.

“If he can get the ball and finish like he did against Salisbury on Friday he will go far, but we all know he doesn’t do that half the time.

“When you are trying to do a job for the team, which he does, he runs the channels, he puts himself about and doesn’t really get many chances, and when they do come it is difficult when you are trying to do other people’s jobs.

“You are not scoring goals but you are obviously doing alright because you are in the squad. At Rotherham I scored three or four goals in a season but I played forty-odd games.

“Every time I didn’t play or got dropped Adam Le Fondre would knock on the manager’s door and say ‘I want to play with Popey’.

“As long as your team mates are respecting what you are doing - I don’t think the lads are worried about Willo not scoring goals.

“We know he gives us something different with his pace and his power and he can get in behind teams and cause them problems.

“That finish on Friday was a great finish and hopefully will give him the confidence to go on and get a few more.