Magpies hoping to steal the points on Boxing Day
Defender Richard Duffy says all teams will lose games during the season, but the manner in which Vale tasted defeat against MK Dons was hard to swallow.
After their recent decent run was halted on Saturday, Duffy and his team mates are hoping to set off on a similar run, starting with Thursday’s game against Notts County.
“We have come in and trained as normal and it was just one that you put to one side, it was a bad day. The manager came out and apologised to everyone and I think the players should do as well.
“”It wasn’t good enough but we move on now, there’s another game on Thursday and we are looking forward to it.
“You are going to lose games in a season, that’s inevitable, but sometimes it is the way you lose them.
“We came out in the second half and had a go but it was too late, we were three-nil down and realistically were not going to get back into the game. In the second half we had a go but the first half wasn’t good enough.
“It is up to the manager to decide what he does and what he thinks and whether or not the changes he made were good or bad is not for me to comment on.
“But when eleven players are put out there to play then you expect them to do a job and do it well.
“I think we have lost two in ten games or something like that and I am sure if you said ten games ago you are going to win this amount and lose just two games he would have taken it.
“We start again now and aim to start another run and I think if you were to offer him another two defeats in the next ten games I am sure he will bite your hand off.”
Shaun Derry brings Notts County to Vale park on Boxing Day and Duffy notes they have picked up in recent games and he is certainly not expecting an easy game.
“They have had a couple of good results in recent weeks. They are inconsistent, but on their day, as they showed away to Colchester recently they can be dangerous so we are in for a tough game.
“As a defence, we have got to try and stop the goals, that’s our job, at the end of the day if we score more than the opposing team then we win the game.
That’s the way we set out, we are quite an attacking team, so we are going to conceded goals but we do need to tighten up at the back.”