JJ Hooper Pre-Match Talk

JJ Hooper Pre-Match Talk

Port Vale welcome Bury to Vale Park tonight, as they try to get back underway after last week’s postponement.

Vale go up against Bury who have climbed out of the relegation zone in Sky Bet League One under Chris Brass, as they are currently sitting in the 20thposition.

Vale weren't able to play last week due their match being postponed against MK Dons, which means that they haven't played a game since the Emirates FA Cup loss against Championship side Huddersfield Town, which happened almost two weeks ago.

Attacker JJ Hooper spoke to Valiant PlayerHD ahead of tonight’s game and spoke about how he is glad to be back in a Vale shirt: “It’s a good feeling, obviously, I’m looking forward to the second half of the season and will hopefully get some goals.

“It was a nice feeling getting the Vale shirt back on and it was good to get 45 minutes on the pitch and I’ll just keep improve my fitness during training.

 “It’s a good feeling when you are wanted by the manager, I will have to try and repay him now.”

The 23-year-old is enjoyed his time at Northampton Town but he is focused being back at the club, saying that he will play in whatever position needed so long as he helps the team progress: “I enjoyed my time at Northampton, under Page, but my main focus, an only focus, now is Port Vale and try to push them up the table.

“My main position is up top but I will go in any position to help the team, whether that be on the right, or the left, I don’t mind as long as I help the team.”

Hooper hopes that he and Anton Forrester will be able to prove themselves together on the pitch as he believes that they have enough chemistry to bounce the ball off each other: “We’re good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing, if we do play together, what we can bring because I know we’ve both got the same qualities and we just bounce off each other.”

When on the subject of tonight’s opposition, Bury, the attacker thought that the game would not be easy for Vale, seems as they have just come off a 5-1 win over Peterborough United last weekend: “I think it will be a tough game, they came from a good result from the weekend but I think we’ve just got to focus on ourselves and see if we can win the game.

“That’s what happened when I was at Northampton, we switched off for the last 10-15 minutes and they have the quality to get back into games.”