The Valiants kicked off their Checkatrade Trophy campaign by picking up two points in group D following a penalty shootout triumph over Oldham Athletic on Tuesday night.

During the 90 minutes of normal time at Boundary Park, Vale controlled large parts of the game without managing to find the net. Michael Brown's men did keep a clean sheet, however, and Joe Davis was delighted with that.

Having played at right-back versus Crewe Alexandra last weekend, he moved back into centre-back to partner Nathan Smith, a player Davis is familiar with from his first spell at the club.

"I know Nathan really well and I know what he's thinking on the pitch and that definitely helps, playing next to someone you understand." he said.

"It's vice-versa too, he understands my game and we make a good pairing. We have played together before and it would be great to be given more opportunities to play alongside him."

The two central defenders certainly thwarted Oldham well over the course of the match, but Davis was quick to commend the efforts of his teammates.

He said: "Keeping a clean sheet is massive for me and the rest of the back line, including Ryan Boot, a player who I thought was brilliant tonight.

"The whole team was excellent. Hopefully this can kickstart us now and we can start picking up points in the league."

Notts County travel to Vale Park in the next Sky Bet League Two fixture of the 2017/18 season on Saturday and Davis has his eyes set on a good performance.

On preparing for the game, he said: "We will go away now, recover and get our legs back. The team will look into how the opposition play and we analyse that to give ourselves the best chance of getting a result.

"It's just about recovery now, that's the first thing on our minds, but we are ready to go again on Saturday."