Speaking after last night’s Capital One Cup 3-2 defeat against Cardiff City, Vale manager Micky Adams said there were a lot of positives he can get out of the game, which they can hopefully take into the game on Saturday against Chesterfield.
Micky said: “Both sides played some decent football, I thought Cardiff were excellent. We were hoping we’d catch them when they didn’t fancy it, but there’s a lot of lads that played tonight that could be in Cardiff’s first team.
“It’s all about taking your chances at key times. I thought if we could have closed the gap in the last 15minutes we could have given it a good go, however, that last goal came a bit too late.”
Micky was happy with Michael O’Connor‘s first half wonder strike from 45-yards out that got Vale back into the game.
He said: “It was a great strike in the top corner; Michael is capable of that which he’s shown down the years. It kept us in the game and I think we deserved to be there at that point.
“We took him off during the second half to give him a rest and make sure he’s fresh for Saturday because he’s a key midfield player for us.”
Vale made seven changes to the team that lost against Notts County on Saturday, and Micky feels that it is important for all managers to do so, subsequently the players are fresh and ready when they are called upon.
He explained: “My players haven’t had reserve team football and have not played since the end of pre-season, so what we don’t want to do is leave them on the bench stagnating. We gave them a game and they all did quite well
“I think when you look at how many changes Cardiff made, it shows that we all have a dressing room to manage and give everyone game time.”
On a final note the Gaffer feels that with a small number of improvements to the team, he has a team here that is good enough to compete with the best.
He said: “We’re disappointed we haven’t progressed in the cup but lets not get carried away, our bread and butter is the League. We have an important game on Saturday, we’ve lost our last two so need to get back to winning ways.
“We’re not too far away from being a decent side, so if we can put it altogether we’ll be okay.
“We need to look at improving the final pass, the final cross and the final bit of defending at times because we’ve been a bit sloppy.
“When I look back at the game against Notts County, we had 21 efforts on goal and how we’ve not scored, I don’t know.”