Tom Pope says that Saturday’s stalemate at Whaddon Road felt like two dropped points, after the Valiants put in an impressive performance at fellow play-off challengers Cheltenham.
“It was a good performance, we probably didn’t get what we deserved to be honest.”
“I think on the whole reflection of the game we deserved three points.”
Despite edging the game and having a penalty overturned by the linesman, the result did extend Vale’s unbeaten run to eight games, the longest current unbeaten run in League Two.
“Brown hasn’t had a save to make. Confidence wise it’s good, we keep moving on, but at the moment we keep feeling like we’re dropping two points, (Vale have drawn their last three games) we haven’t really had a scrappy one where we’ve nicked a point.”
“That’s how far we’ve come. You come to places like Cheltenham and get a point and feel like you’ve dropped two.”
“Before the game you would have taken a point, but after the way the game has panned out, you’re disappointed to have dropped two.”
The Valiants now have two home games in a row to look forward to, with the visit of Crawley next weekend, before Bradford visit Vale Park during the following week and Pope is looking forward to returning to the Valiants stomping ground.
“It’ll be good to get back to Vale Park.”
“If we can get six points from those two games, then it puts us right in the mix.”
“If we keep performing the way we have done then the results will come, we’ve just got to keep it going and hopefully the results will come.”
Vale had two penalty claims at Whaddon Road, one of which was overruled by the linesman but Pope doesn’t believe that either of them were penalties.
“The first one he’s got the ball, I haven’t seen it back so I don’t know, but I know some of the lads have said he got the ball, but he (the referee) shouldn’t be getting overruled by his linesman.”
“I think when you’re ten yards away from the incident, and you’ve been overruled by a linesman from 50 yards away, that doesn’t sit well with me.”
“If a linesman gives an offside, someone from the crowd doesn’t come onto the pitch and says he’s onside. The referee’s given a penalty regardless of whether it’s right or wrong.
“The second one, Tom (Conlon) says he’s gone over his leg, he didn’t feel any contact.
“I think his momentum probably took him down, but from the bench where we were it didn’t look like there was any contact either.”
Attention now turns to next weekend’s clash with Crawley which Pope believes will be a tough game.
“It’ll be tough like every game, but if we perform like we have been doing, then there’s no reason why we can’t get three points, certainly at home with the fans behind us, it’s a good chance for us to get back to winning ways.”