Valiants could be challenging

JOHN Askey is confident his Port Vale team has enough quality to be challenging at the top end of the table, as they prepare for this afternoon’s game at Oldham.

Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat at leaders Cambridge sent Vale down five places to 13th having lost three of their last four league games - but the manager was pleased with their performance for large parts of the game.

Having beaten title favourites Salford 1-0 at Vale Park last weekend, he has seen enough to believe they can be challenging.

But he acknowledges expectation is greater this season having finished just outside the play-off places when the 2019-20 campaign was cut short.

Askey said: “That was always going to happen, because if you are improving then expectations go up.

“We know where we are. But there is no reason why we can’t be competing at the top.

“There is no game we have played where you think we have been outplayed.

“You could say in every game, we could have won, but I suppose you could say we could have lost every game.

“We just need to stamp our authority on the game a little bit more and then I think we will start getting the results.”

He says players haven’t quite been playing to their best consistently, but he’s seen enough to believe that will come.

He said: “Confidence is a big thing in football. I can’t say that, as a team, we have had everybody playing really well at the same time.

“There has been a little bit of inconsistency, but once they do then we won’t be far off.”