Alex boss cannot hide his disappointment after poor display at Vale Park

David Artell didn’t attempt to sugar coat his side’s disappointment performance at Vale Park this afternoon. Port Vale deservedly won the game 1-0 thanks to a splendid finish from Tom Pope and Artell was hugely disappointed that his players didn’t perform anywhere near their standard on the day.

Following the 1-0 defeat, Artell told the club’s official website: “The performance matched the result and we were awful. The performance was up there with the Colchester one earlier in the season. I am not going to sugar coat it. If we concede a goal and lose 1-0 but we play the right way then I will stand and defend them all the time. Today I can’t do that because that was dross from us.

“We just whacked it and that isn’t us at all. If we play like that we would lose every game in this division.

“We helped them today by the way we kept whacking it and I said at half time stop whacking it because Jones and Howkins were heading everything, but we still did it and our decision making was poor. We played some football at times and looked decent but we didn’t do that nearly enough. We came in at 0-0 at half time and thought right lets settle into the game and play our football but we didn’t do that.

“Ben Garratt was our best player by a country mile. He was outstanding for us and he kept us in the game. That says a lot about how we played as a team on the day when your goalkeeper is the only one who played anywhere near his level. He deserves the plaudits he will get.

“We cannot use the fact that it is a local derby or a big game. I know all that but that cannot be an excuse for the performance today. We have to pick ourselves and it is disappointing because I know they are so much better that that but we made the easy decision of chipping the ball up to our centre-forward for most of the game and we are not very good at that. It played into their hands.