Adams hoping last night's win helps build confidence

Micky Adams was pleased to get back to winning ways following Vale’s late win against Bury in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy last night, but says his main concern is in the league.

Speaking after the match , the Vale boss was hopeful last night’s success would give his players something to take into Saturday’s match at Brunton Park, where Vale take on bottom-of-the-table Carlisle United.

He said: “We kept going and we saw lots of endeavour, which was pleasing. Some of the football at times was good, some if the defending at times was average and the ‘keeper played well, so there’s a mixed lot there.

“We want to take any crumb of confidence that we gain from this result up to Carlisle, that’s our priority, the League is our priority.

“We like to well in the cup obviously, it’s probably the only one we can win so we will have a go at it, but we had a lot of honest endeavour and that’s all I want.

The manager was quick to praise goalkeeper Chris Neal, who made a number of decent saves, in particular a triple save midway through the second half which effectively turned the game.

He said: “The ‘keeper has played particularly well and I have already highlighted the fact that particularly in the second half we didn’t play well, and if you don’t defend well then you need your ‘keeper to come to the fore and tonight he was excellent.

“Some of the saves that he made obviously kept us in the game. At one-nil he makes a great save and we are still in the game.

“That’s an important lesson for us, that if we are one-nil down, let’s stay in the game because you never know what can happen, and as we saw we grabbed two late goals and we progressed through.”

Two goals late on in the game from Tom Pope turned things around for the Valiants, but the manager, whilst confident the striker will get there, feels he isn’t quite himself just yet.

He commented: “I think that if he is being brutally honest with himself, he’s not the most confident player I have seen in a Vale shirt at the moment – he’s having a tough time of it.

“He will have to look at his game, we will have to look at at, but he got himself a goal from a corner, which he is always capable of doing, and the second one was a great finish.

“We’ve seen him do that on numerous occasions, particularly last season, but in his general play he is not firing on all cylinders and he has still got a bit of work to do, but hopefully those two goals will help him.”