Vale winger, Cristian Montano was happy to have gotten a full 90 minutes under his belt against Burton, but was disappointed to not progress in the Carabao Cup.
After a long spell on the side-lines Montano was pleased to have been able to play the full game against Burton Albion, but was disappointed with the result after another positive performance against a team in the league above.
The game was Montano’s first start of the new season, having only played the last 10 minutes against Colchester prior to last night, following a number of reoccurring hamstring injuries, with the most recent sustained at Kidsgrove in pre-season.
He spoke about how hard he has worked to get back to playing and the mental difficulty of the journey, but to have featured all game and felt good last night has given his confidence a major boost and he hopes to stay fit and help the team have a successful season.
He said: “I’m happy to have got the start and I am even happier to have lasted 90 minutes, it has been a long time since I last played.
“Being back training two weeks now with the lads and being able to last 90 minutes in a game that was high tempo, it does me a lot of confidence.
“I’m now feeling strong, sharp, I feel fit as well, it has been frustrating for myself, I did a lot of work in the off-season maintaining my hamstring.”
“I’m happy to have lasted 90 minutes and now I’ve just got to take that into Saturday.”
The fans will also hope he can continue his form, especially if he is able to replicate his results from last season, where he scored seven goals and finished as the second highest scorer.
Montano showcased his pace, dribbling and shooting ability against Burton and now hopes to stay fit and help the team get their first win of the season against Salford, a team that has a lot of buzz and hype around them, shown by the documentary made about them.
The game will be hard as Salford are a rather unknown side, who deserve to be respected for their achievements, but Montano believes that all the buzz has given the squad even more drive to win the game and give back to all the 1,400 travelling fans for their amazing support.
He said: “There’s a lot of hype about them and who owns them, but we just have to worry about ourselves.
“We’ll just go there and take care of business, we’ll just worry about ourselves and hopefully we can give a good performance and take a positive result.
“Having the fans backing us, I’ve heard and I’ve seen how they’re going in numbers, it means a lot to the players, so just go there, make a lot of noise and we’ll take care of everything else.”