Following last Saturday's slender 1-0 defeat to promotion-chasing Mansfield Town, Neil Aspin has highlighted just how 'competitive' this league can be.

Despite going down to ten men against The Stags, the boss was left feeling as if his Vale side were unlucky not to come away from the league tie with a point - he has put that down to the competitive nature of League Two football.

Despite sitting 16th in the table, The Valiants are just four points away from the top half of the table - just eight points off the promotion places. In order to climb the table, the boss has instilled just how important it will now be to pick up points against the teams in and around the mid-table spot.

He said: "I think it's a very competitive league and I think there are some good teams in the league.

"I think there's a group of teams that are better than us at this moment in time. Then there is a large group of teams that we'd have to count ourselves in the same group.

"We have to make sure we pick up a lot of points against all the teams that are in that group and it's quite a big group because I dont think there's a lot of difference between any of the teams that you play."

Aspin has also provided an update on the pair of Ricky Miller and David Worrall ahead of Saturday's league clash with Swindon Town.

Miller picked up a slight muscle-injury on Friday and the boss made the decision not to risk the forward for the games that were to come in the next few days, however Aspin has now confimed he will be available for selection against Swindon this weekend. 

Due to the change in style and formation currently set by the gaffer, Worrall has slightly fallen out of favour in terms of first team selection, yet Aspin has called for consistency as the winger looks to force his way back into the side.

He said: "Ricky had a bit of a muscle injury on the Friday and we thought that it wasn't worth risking him especially in Saturday's game and I didn't feel he was worth risking in the reserve game today but he should be available for Saturday."

On Worrall: "It's been a combination of things, we've been playing wing-backs so we didn't include him in the squad because we wanted to have other people on the bench. He'd had a problem with his hip then he had a car accident so he had whiplash.

"He's playing in the reserves today and it's up to him to impress to get back into the squad."