He says Sam must learn from this
Mark Grew last night slammed midfielder Sam Morsy after the young midfielder was sent off for a tackle on the halfway line.
Vale went on to surrender a two-goal lead, allowing visitors Rochdale to earn themselves a point from the game, when they ought to have been dead and buried.
Grew said: “Sam was a 16-year-old kid when I took him from Wolves and he has always had that nasty side to him, but that to me wasn’t nasty, that was just stupidity on the day and it has cost us dearly.
“The referee blew up for it and then when the bench jumped up and all of the players piled in he changed his mind.
“I thought the tackle in the first half from McIntyre on Jennison. ‘Jeno’ said after the game ‘I should have gone down rolling in agony and got him sent off’
“I don’t think Sam hurt the lad but the studs were raised and if the studs are raised it will always cause a problem these days.
“There is tackling and there is being stupid. Maybe three or four years ago that wouldn’t have been a sending off but today if you raise your studs , even if you don’t catch the lad, you’ve got a chance of being sent off.
“He has got to learn from it and learn from it quickly or it is going to cost him dearly. It is certainly going to cost him his place and the gaffer, as you can imagine, is not too happy with him.”
Vale’s Assistant Manager believes if it hadn’t been for the sending off, Vale would have finished the game comfortable winners, but the team now has big problems ahead of the game at Southend on Saturday.
“Popey has done tremendous with his goals. Up to the sending off I thought there was only one team in the game and we thought it was going to be three, four or five.” said Grew
“Ben Williamson has had chances again in the first half and we created a lot of chances, but we didn’t kill the game off and it was very disappointing for us.
is nowhere near, so that puts extra pressure on us for Saturday, but we have got to get on with that and get on with it.” “Doug Loft felt his calf tighten up again and Darren Murphy has pulled his hamstring, John McCombe is out and Gareth Owen