Duff hits out at ‘soft’ Robins
Manager calls for a ruthless streak as lead goes begging in Vale loss,
MANAGER Michael Duff labelled his Cheltenham Town team’s performance as ‘soft’ as they lost on the road for the first time at Port Vale on Tuesday night.
The Robins allowed a lead to slip away as they were condemned to a 2-1 defeat, having opened the scoring three minutes into the second half when Will Boyle’s cross from the left was flicked on by Alfie May and headed in from close range by Andy Williams for his fourth goal of the campaign.
Vale were only behind for four minutes when defender Leon Legge headed into a corner from David Worrall in the 52nd minute.
It was the first goal Cheltenham have conceded on the road this term, but 16 minutes later their defence was breached again.
Worrall then grabbed the winner with a clinical finish after Luke Joyce’s ball forward was not cut out by Charlie Raglan.
Cheltenham should have been ahead at the break, but they wasted a succession of chances.
Former Robins goalkeeper Scott Brown produced an outstanding save to deny Williams, who then hit the bar after a scramble in the box.
Liam Sercombe fired wide when through one-on-one and they were made to pay for not taking their opportunities by Vale’s second half show.
When asked about the performance, Duff replied: “Soft, I think is the word.
“We were not clinical enough and we should have been out of sight after an hour.
“Then we go 1-0 up with a good goal, give a really poor goal away.
“We have given a poor free-kick away to invite them on and then another poor free-kick.
“Then there is a lack of communication when there is no talking and you invite them on.
“How it is 1-1 after 60 or 70 minutes I will never know and it feels like we haven’t got out of second gear again.
“We need to be more ruthless with each other. They are a great set of lads, but they need to demand a bit more from each other.
“It’s a few times now I’ve been stood here saying we’ve played quite well, but we didn’t get the result or even when we’ve won two and three it should be four or five.
“There needs to be more ruthlessness within the squad.
“I thought we were good for an hour tonight. Go 1-0 up and all of a sudden it’s ‘oh I’m not sure anymore’ - why?
“Go and stick four or five on people. It’s not going to happen every week, but when you go away from home and go 1-0 up, the same thing happened again because we’ve lost three games and in two of them we’ve been the better team for long periods of it.
“So you need to put teams to bed when you are on top.
“It’s frustrating because I think the league’s there for somebody to go and take.
“We are sitting here after nine games and we’ve lost three and I don’t think we have got out of second gear.
“We’ve had pockets of good football. Maybe the league is a bit funny because of no crowds and it is difficult to recreate that intensity, but we can’t say it’s all right when we win and it’s not when we don’t.
“We were good for an hour. How the one when Scotty (Brown) has made an unbelievable save and then it’s hit the crossbar and the post after that as well.
“They never really hurt us at all and the lads delivered a good performance, but it was okay. Okay gets you nothing.”
Duff said his players did not ‘heed the warning’ after they failed to take those first-half chances.
“The second half won’t be exactly the same.
“Then we go 1-0 up and the disappointing thing is we go straight into the back foot.
“It was almost like ‘oh we’ve done enough now’.
“We have got a good away record, so the goals we conceded aren’t like us.
“But that’s the ruthlessness within it and you can almost feel it coming
“You can’t leave Leon Legge in five yards of space in the penalty area because one thing he can do is head it.
Duff said he will sit down with his staff and work out how to find that ‘higher gear’ he is looking for.
“There have been some good performances,” he said.
“Every game we’ve played we’ve been in and had good spells within games.
“Look at the three games we’ve lost and I can’t quite believe we’ve lost any of them.
“But we have so again we might need to be more ruthless in what we do.
“There is a good group, some good players, but nice and average won’t get you anywhere in football.
“It’s too cutthroat and you need to be prepared to step on someone else’s head to get to where you want to.
“At the minute I am not quite sure whether we are going to commit and say ‘we want this’ and almost grasp the nettle.
“The mentality has been good. “But you look at the difference between last year and this year already and last year we don’t get beaten here last year.
“I am not sure we played as well last year in a lot of games and dominated long periods of games as well.
“It’s not the mentality, it’s the ruthlessness that we’re trying to find.
“The players need to find that as well. Don’t come in and accept getting beaten.
“They all get on, which is great, but sometimes you need a little bit of conflict, someone to stir it up.
“It can’t always come from one voice on the sideline. It was really quiet today and that’s something we’ll need to try and find.
“We’ll pick the bones out of it and we won’t be as good as what I thought in the first hour and as bad as what I thought in the last half an hour because that’s often the way it is.
“I don’t know what the stats are and I am loath to go on stats because the facts are we lost, but in terms of clear cut chances, opening them up at times, both boxes again has cost us.”
Port Vale (4-3-3): Brown; Clark, Legge, Smith, Montano (Fitzpatrick 36); Burgess, Joyce Conlon; Amoo (Whitehead 90), Robinson (Pope 63), Worrall. Subs not used: Cullen, Brisley, Rodney, Visser.
Griffiths; Raglan, Tozer, Boyle; Thomas, Sercombe, Clements (Reid 83), Hussey; Sang (Addai 76); Williams, May. Subs not used: Harris, Bowry, Freestone, Horton, Chapman.