Caretaker boss pleased with the points
Vale caretaker boss Rob Page admitted his side got out of gaol when Lee Hughes’ late goal earned the Valiants a point yesterday against Bristol City, but was quick to praise the resilience and hard work of his players.
He said: “We worked on things all week - half of it we did and half of it we didn’t. What has got us success over the last couple of season has been our work-rate and endeavour.
“We play after we grind teams down, but the first half of that today throughout the game was missing - we all know that as a group, we have spoken about it, so from that point we are a little disappointed.
“But credit to the lads again, they never know when to give up and they kept going again right to the end just as he (the fourth official) is putting three minutes up Hughesy gets the goal for us.
“We will take it. We’re not over the moon with the performance but we will take the point, we will have a look at the DVD, we will address things and we will go again.
“It’s not we are all about and we know that as a group of players, so we are prepared to draw a line under it – it won’t happen too many times this season.
“At this level, when you get your chances you have got to finish them and thankfully for us we did that today and we have got something out of the game.
“Lee Hughes has been there, done it and worn the tee-shirt. He has been a fantastic pro since ha came into the club and | know I can trust him when he goes out onto the pitch, certainly I big games.
“He comes on for twenty-five minutes and you know what you are going to get from him and you know that if anybody is going to be there under pressure to put the chance away it is going to be him.
“Thankfully it fell to him. He deserved it, he created his own little bit of luck, he worked hard for us, got the chance and finished it.
Page admitted he was under more stress this week than he was at any time during last week’s win against Tranmere Rovers, but he is still unbeaten in his shirt managerial career.
He said: “I thought they were magnificent last week, but we did the horrible side of the job first, but today I didn’t think we did that.
“They had somebody up front with lightening pace and I don’t think we turned him around enough in the first ten or fifteen minutes.
“We didn’t play in the right areas, but let’s give credit where it is due, I thought Bristol City were a good footballing team.
“It has been a lot more stressful today standing on the sidelines compared to what it was like last week.
“I enjoyed last week, and it is easy to say that when you have got a win, but I thought some of our play was brilliant last week.”