INSISTS SKIPPER POPE
against a Sunderland side who are second in League One and had won six games on the spin.
Instead Vale made a woeful start as they’d barely had a touch before Chris Maguire was given room in the area to set up Honeyman to score.
No doubt rattled by the goal, the Valiants were getting nowhere near their visitors so it was no great surprise when Gooch added the second after he had been given time to turn in the area and get away a low strike.
A third and fourth goal looked on the cards as Vale’s wing-backs Vassell and Mitch Clark found themselves penned in and the visitors pinged the ball about, able to pick their moments to find holes in the defence.
So, Aspin changed to a 4-4-2 as Connell Rawlinson and Clark went to right and left-back respectively, either side of Leon Legge and Nathan Smith in the back four, and Oyeleke partnered Luke Joyce in the centre of midfield, with Luke Hannant and Tom Conlon out wide.
Pope added: “I think after half an hour everybody was expecting a rout. I thought the gaffer was brave and made a change early because their full-backs were getting out all day, they were killing us.
“We were playing 3-5-2 and they were just 2 v 1 all day down the sides. Our wing-backs couldn’t get out to press their full-backs and they kept switching the play, we couldn’t get the ball off them.
“Manny came on and had a big effect on the game but also we had two wide men then - Tom Conlon pushed out to the left and Luke to the right and stopped their full-backs getting out. It allowed us to get up the pitch a lot more and stopped them from playing and having the ball so easily.
“We found a way back into the game.”
That way back was a superb finish from Pope for his eighth goal of the season, a strike that shattered the growing impression that the visitors were invincible.
Instead, we saw Vale take the game to them in the second half when, but for a little more fortune, they would be looking forward to a replay at the Stadium of Light.
Baldwin’s sliding challenge on Hannant looked like a penalty from the stand, but unfortunately not from the referee’s viewpoint.
It’s hard to pull off a result against a side as good as Sunderland without those key decisions, although the Black Cats could argue they still threatened in the second half and went close when Honeyman forced a fine save from Scott Brown.
Still, the Valiants could take much consolation from the fact they had given a huge scare to a side who are undoubtedly the biggest, and may by the end of the season prove to the best, side in the bottom two divisions.
Oyeleke would certainly have started this game had he not been out for five weeks with hamstring trouble and only made his comeback for the reserves five days earlier. Having him back, having Pope in excellent form, and Vale playing like they did for an hour here, all bodes well for the league campaign when Vale won’t, we hope, have to face opposition as accomplished as the Black Cats.
Pope added: “We deserved something from the game. It was a positive performance and, on another day we get something, maybe a replay. It wasn’t to be but I think we can only take positives from that. For 20 minutes we were poor, the shape killed us and they exploited that and you have to give them credit. But then we changed ours and more than matched them.”