ASPIN STAYING GROUNDED OVER POTENTIAL DEAL FOR MIDFIELDER

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PORT Vale boss Neil Aspin isn’t taking the signing of Mark Sykes for granted as the Valiants try to complete a deal for the 21-year-old Glenavon midfielder. The Northern Irish Premiership club have revealed they have accepted a transfer bid from the Valiants, but personal terms still have to be agreed. Aspin doesn’t want to jinx a deal for the Northern Ireland under-21 international, who has attracted the attention of a number of other clubs. He would have preferred Vale’s interest to have been kept quiet, but news of negotiations were reported in the Northern Irish media over the weekend. The Vale boss said: “A fee has been agreed, but there is still a lot of work to be done for us to get the player. “Certainly from the club who wants the player, you want to keep it quiet. But the other side of the coin is the club we want him from need to maximise their asset, and they want as many clubs interested as possible. “Ideally we would like to be talking about it with everything in place. There are times you hope to get a player and it doesn’t happen, so we should talk about it if we do sign him.” The midfielder, who has been with Glenavon since he was 16, has been linked with interest from Hibs, Hearts, Blackburn and Oxford. Meanwhile, the Valiants return to action tomorrow when they are at home to Cheltenham Town (3pm). Vale are three games unbeaten, but Aspin says they will have to play better than they did in last Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Morecambe when they salvaged a point in the last 10 minutes thanks to goals from Antony Kay and Tom Pope, plus Scott Brown’s penalty save. The Valiants are expected to confirm the Cheltenham game will go ahead. Their public address system was vandalised in the Checkatrade game against Stoke, but Vale have been fixing that to satisfy safety requirements.