Aspin: It’s hard to explain our poor display on road
WHO would be a manager? Port Vale’s performance in last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Morecambe was unrecognisable from their efforts in winning 3-0 at Yeovil and 4-0 at home to Stoke under-21s, despite Neil Aspin fielding basically the same side.
What’s more the manager says he sent the players out with just the same attacking intent at the Globe Arena as he had in those back-to-back wins.
So, to see his team fall way below the standards they had set, before eventually coming away with a rather fortunate 2-2 draw, was frustrating to say the least.
Frustrating for the 400 travelling supporters and frustrating for the bloke in charge in the technical area.
In fact, that inconsistency can drive a manager to distraction.
Aspin said: “It does because I think everybody likes to have a theory about football, and you are dealing with a job and an industry where everybody has an opinion.
“But to think that you would win two games and score seven goals, and then send the same team out with a different instruction, would be absolutely ludicrous.
“It just doesn’t happen like that. But what happens is, the opposition are different, they play differently. Your players probably don’t start the game well, they get on the back foot and then you are in a different game. They have the same instructions but they can’t carry out the same job as they have done in the previous two games.
“But if anybody ever thinks that a manager can just change how they perform - it doesn’t happen like that.
“We set out at Morecambe with the same team as against Stoke, to play the same way and we wanted to start the game well. But it didn’t happen and we never got going in that game. We were really poor.
“You have to be honest as a manager. Some people want reasons, but there isn’t any reason. That is the way football is and unfortunately the level that we are at. You get players who are inconsistent and sometimes their performance levels dip. Certainly on Saturday we did well below what we need to do well in this league.”
Aspin must decide whether to keep faith with the same side or freshen things up with changes. He has options as Leon Legge and Mitch Clark have returned to training this week and are expected to be available.
The Valiants have confirmed today’s game at home to Cheltenham will definitely go ahead after they were able to get a working public address system.
They had said the game could be in doubt after the PA system in the away end was vandalised during the Checkatrade game against Stoke. Other vandalism in the Hamil End included a smashed up toilet block and around 150 seats ripped out of the stand.
Aspin prepared for this weekend’s game on the assumption it would be on. He explained: “I don’t get involved in the extent of the damages. In my mind, the game was always going to be on. I never thought anything different.
“You should never have to be talking about anything but the football. That’s what we all want. Anything else has no place in football and no place in society. You want to have rivalry, but it can’t be spilling over into what we saw at that particular game.”