Vale's priority to avoid the drop

Vale Assistant manager Mark Grew is keen to play down any talk of the play-offs, insisting Vale’s first job is to end any chance of leaving League One at the other end of the table.

High on Vale’s agenda ahead of the visit of Leyton Orient is to cut out the ‘silly’ free kicks being given away which invite the opposition on.

“I am not going to get carried away with all of this ‘play-offs’ talk, we are going to take it game by game and if we can go on a run then we will have a look at it, but the first thing is to get to safety and make sure we stay in this league. He said:  

“Tonight we come up against a side that are pushing to get in the top two. We had them watched on Saturday against Notts County and they will feel it is two points dropped.

“Wolves and Brentford have made strides again so I am sure they will want to come here and pick the three points up.

“If you had said they would get four points from the two games they would have taken that, so I think they will come here and look for the three points.

“Russell Slade has done a super job. With the start they had to the season they were never going to keep that going all season, but he has kept them there or thereabouts in the top three so he has done a fantastic job.

“I think they will stick to what they know, what has got them to the top of the league and I can’t imagine he is going to come here and be negative.

here and try and get into the top two and to do that they have got to pick three points up, so I can’t imagine, the way Russell goes about his business, him coming here and being negative. “He is going to come

“But results breed confidence and we are creating chances. We are getting punished for some slack defending and the goal on Saturday came about because we give stupid free kicks away.

“We have told them all season that if you keep inviting balls into our box you are going to concede and then Popey has lost his man and it was the first time their lad has ever scored.

“Popey was the first to hold his hands up, that was his man and it was his responsibility and he didn’t pick him up, but if we stop giving stupid free kicks away then we don’t have that pressure on us.”