The Valiants welcome Luton Town to Vale Park on Saturday afternoon, looking to extend their unbeaten streak.
Jon Brady's side comes into this weekend’s clash following an important three points on Tuesday evening. Jayden Stockley’s strike in first-half stoppage time was enough to see Vale leave Northampton with the win.
Post Northampton Thoughts
Here’s what the gaffer had to say after Tuesday’s win:
“I think it (the game) was two teams lacking in confidence, really, but pleased to get the three points and to reduce them to no shots on target throughout the whole match”.
Press Conference Takeaways
Here’s what Jon Brady had to say regarding Saturday’s game:
“We’ve got to deal with what goes on the pitch and any threats that we perceive they have, can we nullify those and then any weaknesses they have, can we exploit them?”
Our Opponents
Four promotions in the space of nine years meant that Luton became the only team to go from the National League to the Premier League. However, since then, the Hatters have suffered back-to-back relegations and now find themselves back in League One.
Luton currently sit in tenth position in the league, six points behind the play-off spots. Saturday's visitors had a decent start to the season, but going into October began to dip in form. Since then, they have been somewhat inconsistent, but the Hatters will still be hopeful to secure a top-six finish come the end of the season.
Luton come into this match off the back of knocking Plymouth Argyle out of the Vertu Trophy, progressing to the semi-finals.
The Opposition Dugout
Jack Wilshere is the man in charge of the Hatters. The former Arsenal midfielder was appointed manager in October last year, following the tenure of Matt Bloomfield.
This is Jack's first professional managerial role after he had a spell at Norwich City as their assistant manager. Prior to this, Wilshere was manager of Arsenal's U18s for just over two years. Since his appointment, Jack has won thirteen of his twenty-eight games in charge.
Jack actually began his youth career with his current employers, but moved on to Arsenal’s youth in the early 2000’s. The former midfielder spent the majority of his playing career in North London, making close to 200 appearances for the Gunners and winning two FA Cups and a Community Shield in the process. Wilshere also has 34 England caps to his name, scoring on two of those occasions.
Player to Watch
One of Luton’s standout players up to this point of the campaign is attacking midfielder Jordan Clark. Jordan has been his side's highest performing player this season, and has scored nine goals and contributed with one assist.
This makes him Luton’s joint top scorer, level with Gideon Kodua.
Fixture Throwback
Port Vale 4-0 Luton Town, 30th December 2017
Vale and Luton haven’t come across each other much in recent history, but the Valiants did win the last time these two sides met at Vale Park.
The first action of the game resulted in the opening goal for the Valiants. Ben Whitfield took on his man down the left-hand side and got a cross into the box that was turned into his own net by Johnny Mullins.
Following a dominant first half, Vale doubled their lead fifteen minutes into the second half. It was Whitfield again who was causing problems and this time played a ball over the Luton defence to Tom Pope, who made no mistake, firing an effort low into the bottom corner.
Whitfield would get himself on the scoresheet ten minutes later. Following a poor pass-back from the Town defender, Pope laid the ball into the path of an open Whitfield before Whitfield passed the ball into an empty net.
Vale legend Tom Pope got his second goal of the game with eight minutes of the match remaining. Another defensive mix-up allowed Popey to eventually bundle the ball home from close range and secure the win for the Valiants.