Defender eager to draw positives from defeat
Adam Yates decided to extract the positives from Vale’s 2-1 defeat to Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.
Vale played over 70 minutes of the match with 10-men after defender Daniel Jones received two yellow cards within the first 20-minutes.
The defender who switched to left-back after Jones’ sending-off gave Vale a valuable equaliser minutes before half-time with a hopeful cross finding its way past United ‘keeper George Long.
Yates said: “Certainly as players we feel a bit deflated, the second goal killed us a little bit but we’ve got a strong set of lads and good experience in the dressing room and we move on and take the positives from it.”
“I think the first header was a great header from the lad.
“The second one they’ve shifted the ball across the pitch pretty quickly and the lad has got it out his feet and punished us with a great finish,” he said.
Yates himself admitted afterwards that his goal was intended as a cross after the ball looped over Long into the back of the net.
“I’ve had a touch and just tried to put it in the area, to the back post.
“I knew as soon as I hit it there was a chance of somebody nodding it in and it being too long for the ‘keeper and thankfully it went in.
“It was a good time to score for us as well, right before half-time, it would have been a bit of a sucker-punch for them,” Yates said.
The goal gave Vale an important lift as they headed to the dressing room for half-time.
Vale seemed to respond when having their backs against the wall and Yates was pleased with the performance considering they played the majority of the match with 10-men.
“We went into half-time with a little bit more of a spring in our step.
“The gaffer said that if we play like we did after the sending-off and the second-half every week we’ll have a good season and I think he is right,” he explained.
Yates has backed Jones to bounce back from his red card and revealed that the defender apologised to the squad afterwards.
“Today Jones has come in the dressing room and held his hands up, he’s made a mistake.
“Jones is not one of those that is going to hide, he’s going to want to get back out there and he’ll be grafting on Monday and all through next week to get back in contention,” he added.