STAGS ARE HEADING TO WEMBLEY TO WORK, NOT PLAY, SAYS BOSS CLOUGH
MANSFIELD manager Nigel Clough has made his respect for Port Vale clear as the teams prepare to meet in Saturday’s League Two play-off final at Wembley.
While Vale were overcoming Swindon in the semi-finals, Mansfield got past Northampton to set up a game that’s hard to call.
Vale took four points off the Stags in the regular season, drawing 1-1 at Field Mill in October then edging to a 3-1 win in Burslem in March.
Mansfield were struggling in the lower reaches of the table when the teams met at their ground, but Vale boss Darrell Clarke predicted then that Clough’s side would be competing for promotion.
He was proved correct as Mansfield surged up the table, a turnaround that Clough discussed when he spoke to the media on Tuesday.
He explained the reason for the improvement in results, saying: “Keeping everybody together and everybody sticking together in that run, from the owners all the way down through the supporters.
“I think it would have been very easy for them (the squad) to turn on each other, and that didn’t happen.”
As for Clough’s assessment of Vale, he said: “We haven’t beaten them, that’s one thing. We played incredibly well against them at home, got a 1-1 draw, however, really dominated the game, missed a penalty, and couldn’t get that winning goal, and then made a couple of errors in the game away from home.
“I think they have very similar tools and they’ve done incredibly well to get to Wembley.”
Now Clough is looking forward to the final saying: “It’s been a long 10 months to work towards this, so we just want to perform somewhere near our best on Saturday.
“It’s going to be a good day if we get a result. We’re not going there for anything other than that.
“You have to separate yourself from people going down for a weekend and having a great day out. We’re going to Wembley for work, nothing else, just work.”
· FORMER Port Vale manager John Askey is celebrating promotion from National League North with York City.
York were 11th when Askey was appointed in November, but the 57-year-old guided them into the play-offs and then to a 2-0 play-off final victory at home to Boston United. That ended York’s five-year stay in the National League North.
Askey, from Milton, guided Macclesfield to the National League title in 2018 despite having one of the lowest budgets in the division.
After five months in League One with Shrewsbury, in which he won five games from 21, he joined Vale in January 2019 with a remit to keep the club in the Football League.
He achieved that then turned the team around, taking a club that had flirted with three successive relegation battles, to eighth in League Two in 2019/20 when the season was cut short in March 2020 because of Covid.
Vale were on an eight-game unbeaten run and seemingly on course for the play-offs, but missed out when the campaign was curtailed and settled on points per game.
They started 2020/21 brightly with 19 points from the opening ten games, but there followed a run of six points from 12 matches that cost Askey and his assistant Dave Kevan their jobs in January 2021.