Defender says recent criticism has helped bring the players together
Adam Yates says Vale’s performance against Layton Orient came as no surprise to him, given the quality in the Vale dressing room and he feels Vale are well equipped to compete with the best
Vale put in a hard-working performance last night and in the end can count themselves as unfortunate not o get their just rewards, but Yates feels recent criticism of the team has helped pull everybody in the right direction.
He said: “The first goal was a great finish on what was a quite bobbly pitch and the second one was a free header inside the box, which is a pet hate of managers.
“But I think we put a good performance in and we got about a team that is up there at the top of the league and they are up there for a reason.
“I thought that at least one of the goals we scored should have stood. I will have to see both of them again to make a better judgement on them, but my initial reaction was that Willo on the line – his was certainly in.
we had scored – had one of those gone in and counted you never know what would have happened. “”I don’t think the referee’s position was great on either of the two ‘goals’ and my initial reaction was
“I think we can take a of of heart from the performance – not so much from the result obviously, but it was a good performance on our own pitch.
“We have got enough quality in the dressing room and an experienced manager and we are a big club with a big fan base and there is no reason why we shouldn’t be competing with those at the top of the league.
“I know our budget doesn’t compete with a lot of teams in this league, but we have got players that can compete and we have quite rightly shown it.
“We have had a poor patch, which every team has, and it seems like every critic, whether it be a fan or somebody outside of the club, has tried to slaughter a lot of the players and it doesn’t go unnoticed by us, but the one thing it does do is bring us a little bit closer and it drives us on.”