Port Vale assistant manager Dave Kevan believes that John Askey’s half-time team-talk led to the Valiants’ impressive second-half performance over Cheltenham in which we secured a 2-1 victory at Vale Park, firing us up into a play-off position.
“The gaffer tore into them a bit (at half-time) and livened them up and thankfully that did the trick,” said the Valiants assistant manager.
“I felt after we equalised, we looked the stronger team and looked the most likely to go on and win the game.”
Skipper Leon Legge produced an immediate response for the Valiants, scoring just four minutes after Andy Williams had given the visitors a 48th minute lead.
“We were delighted Leon got his head on the corner, he’s more than capable of doing that as we saw on a number of occasions last season.”
And Worrall was the fans’ pick for man of the match, after a goal and assist helped swing the contest in favour of the Vale, a performance in which delighted Kevan.
“Wozza’s capable of getting goals for us, whether it’s attacking the back stick from a cross from the opposite side, or whether it’s a clever finish as he’s shown tonight.”
Worrall, who won our Player of the Season Award for his performances last season, was delighted with the performance on a team and individual level.
“It was a wake-up call when they scored, and we took control from then,” said the Vale man of the match.
Worrall’s winner was an impressive goal, as he took down a long ball from Luke Joyce, turned his man, and fired the ball into the bottom corner from 18-yards.
“I don’t put too much pressure on myself to score goals every game, because I’d probably get too uptight and think about it too much.”
“Tonight, was probably the first game where I felt like I was getting back to myself on the pitch like I was last season.”
Despite picking up the man of the match award, Worrall was full of praise for his teammates, who he felt contributed to the victory as much as he did, with Scott Brown and Scott Burgess being the particular standouts, whilst substitute Tom Pope put in a selfless performance to help see the game out.
“Scott Brown kept us in the game in the first-half, like he has done so many times since he has been here.”
“I don’t think Cheltenham could handle the energy of our team.”
“Our three centre midfielders didn’t stop running, I thought Burgess was class and was our standout player on the pitch and you’ve got players like Joycey who got the assist for my goal.”
And Kevan was also full of praise for Scott Brown, who’s inspired first-half performance meant that Vale went into the break on level terms.
“In the first-half, Scott has made two or three excellent saves and has kept us in it, make no mistake.”
And with three points secured ahead of our trip to Southend United on Saturday, Kevan says he has been encouraged by the amount of goals scored throughout the team.
“It’s encouraging, we obviously had Mitch (Clark) scoring on Saturday but if the goals are shared around, we don’t mind as long we are scoring more than the opposition!”