After signing for the club in the summer, Ricky Miller made his much anticipated Vale debut on Saturday afternoon as Neil Aspin’s men hosted Shrewsbury Town in their final pre-season friendly at Vale Park.
The 29-year-old featured for 45 minutes and he almost found the net just minutes into his first start, but the striker was just pleased to be out there playing after working hard in training.
He said: “It’s brilliant to get going. I didn’t really want to come off, but I haven’t had much game time so it was just great to get out there and I really enjoyed it.
“I feel as fresh as a daisy and I’m ready to go now. I’ve been working hard on my fitness all summer and now we have just one week left to get it right before Saturday’s game.
“We started well and in the first 30 minutes we didn’t give them a yard. Then they scored from a simple ball over the top and it killed our momentum a little bit, but there were positive signs.
“You can tell that we’re a new team just gelling together, but there definitely some good things to take away from the game.
“Results don’t mean much in pre-season, it’s all about getting minutes into your legs and making sure fitness levels are where they need to be.”
Having taken the National League by storm during his time at Dover, Miller is now determined on translating that form into Sky Bet League Two after his time at Peterborough United didn’t work out.
Now a Vale player, he is eager to learn off the likes of Tom Pope and Louis Dodds and he believes they can form a deadly partnership on the pitch this season.
He said: “They are both brilliant to work with. Tom Pope is just who he is, and Doddsy has got a brilliant footballing brain so I think all of our styles compliment each other very well.
“It’s just a matter of building understanding as quickly as possible and hopefully we can do that on Saturday.
“The whole squad has been working hard to get where we need to be. We have a good team, a strong bond in the changing room and I think things are looking good ahead of the season.
“Neil Aspin and his staff have been brilliant too - they give us the platform to perform so we have to take on board what they say and hopefully it leads to a positive result against Cambridge.”