A win yesterday would have seen the Vale move to within two points of the play-off places, but the gaffer stresses that his players didn’t get the ball forward enough in order to threaten Swindon.

The Vale went into yesterday’s match on the back of an impressive 1-0 win against Leyton Orient last weekend, but Askey says that his players failed to adapt to Swindon's style of play.

The gaffer stresses that some of his players were trying to play like they had against Orient, yet admits that they were never going to have the time on the ball to do so, which ultimately let to Swindon's first goal.

Askey emphasises that his side were still well in the game at the interval despite being two goals down, yet explains that his players never really looked as though they had a goal in them which left the gaffer disappointed.

“It’s a different game, against Leyton Orient, you’ve got more time to play and in these games you haven’t, so you’ve got to adapt to each game, and we didn’t do that today. Some people are wanting to play the same way we were playing against Leyton Orient,  and other teams, you haven’t got the time on the ball to do that so you’ve got to earn the right to play.

“One thing you can do is get them turned and go and close them down, but as I say we just didn’t have enough runners going forward and didn’t play the ball forward enough and that’s how the first goal came, from playing tippy-tappy football when the ball should have been in their half of the pitch, so that was disappointing.

“If you go in at 1-0 you’re still well in the game, you are at 2-0, it can soon change but we never looked as though we had a goal in us today, we just didn’t perform and that’s what’s disappointing."

All in all, the Valiants have performed excellently against those who reside in the top half of the table, but yesterday was a different story as Askey made the honest assessment that his side didn’t deserve anything from the match.

The Vale have a chance to put things right on Tuesday however, Exeter make the trip to Vale Park and Askey emphasises that his side must learn from yesterday’s result and put on a performance.

It’s still only one home defeat in the league for the Valiants, and the gaffer is hoping his side can go back and produce a result.

"I’m disappointed obviously, we deserved to lose today, I haven’t said that many times this season, but we just didn’t do the simple things well enough.

“All we can do is learn from this game, it’s no use sulking and getting down about it, we’ve got to learn from it and then on Tuesday we’ve got to perform.

“As we know at home we’ve got a great record hopefully we can go back there and do better than what we’ve done today."