The Vale players have sat down together and watched Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Leyton Orient.

The management team have played over the goals conceded and pointed out the mistakes made.

Defender Chris Robertson has spoken of the magic formula that will help Vale overcome their recent defeat – hard work.

Robertson said: “You cannot beat a bit of hard work and a bit of graft as a team and as individuals.

“We’ve got to knuckle down, having watched the DVD back you can see a few slight things we need to change.

“Any mistake that we’re doing at the minute is getting punished so as soon as we stop those mistakes we’ll be picking up points left, right and centre.”

Robertson believes Vale are holding their own for large periods of games and it is just a succession of small errors that are costing the side points.

“I think we feel disappointed that we lost the game. 

“We’ve got to do better in certain situations and tighten up in certain areas.

“It’s disappointing to concede a goal as a defender, it’s not a good thing to happen.

“We’re holding our own a lot, we’re not looking to bad we just need to sort out the little errors,” he explained.

Vale are being punished for mistakes, maybe mistakes they could afford to get away with in League Two, Robertson insists Vale cannot afford to take their foot off the pedal in SkyBet League 1. 

“As soon as you come off that pedal as a team or individually you get punished, you can’t afford to do that, you’ve got to be consistent and on it 100% of the time, if you’re not you punished like we saw on Saturday.”