Vale will carry on doing what they have done all season
Despite Torquay’s run of form lately – a run which has seen the Gulls lose five games on the trot – Mark Grew says Vale are expecting a difficult game down at Plainmoor.
Vale have done well on the road this season but they will be taking absolutely nothing for granted and the preparations have been just as thorough as usual.
Vale’s assistant manager said: “I have never played in an easy game at Torquay and we are expecting exactly the same again on Saturday. Their results haven’t gone for them lately, but we are second in the league and people want to beat you.
“On Saturday it was like Morecambe had won the cup when they came off because they had beaten a side who were top of the league.
“They set their stall out to do it and we have got to be bigger than that – we are expecting Torquay to do the same on Saturday.
“But just because we have lost at home, we are not going to start to change the way we play. We have got to where we are by doing the same things all season.
“To start changing and panicking now would be the wrong thing to do. We are going to go down to Torquay and try and get the three points that we lost on Saturday.”
There has been some concern amongst some of the supporters following the last couple of results, in which Vale have failed to score and have picked up a single point, but there won’t be an panic inside the club.
Grew commented: “You can look at the Cheltenham and Gillingham, Southend and Rotherham etc and they are all having blips. Gillingham had a period at home when they couldn’t win a game of football.
“They dropped points and we caught up with them, so there’s no panic in this camp – there’s some disappointment, but no panic.
“There are a lot of points to play for. With the three-point system you are never out of it and you can look down to twelfth or thirteenth.
“Wycombe won at Gillingham the other week and everybody was saying they are a good side and they will get into the play-offs, then all of a sudden they have los their last two games, so it shows it is topsy-turvy.
“We wouldn’t want to change with anybody at the minute because we have worked hard to get the seven points clear and we have played one game less than a lot of teams.
“We have all been disappointed, but football is like that, you get the highs and you have got to take the lows when they come along – it’s all about how you handle the lows.”