WOEFUL VALE ARE PUT TO SWORD BY RIVALS
AWFUL. Port Vale delivered their worst performance of the season to go down 4-0 at Oxford in front of close to 1,000 travelling supporters.
There wasn’t much defence for their efforts over the 90 minutes, but at least this was uncharacteristic for a side who have shown they are much better than this since stepping up from League Two.
The standards they have set made this all the more surprising as they were desperately weak in defence and largely ineffectual in attack against an Oxford side who had only won two league games at home all season. At 4-0 up with 20 minutes to play, United were able to knock the ball about with the confidence of league champions while, for Vale, the scoreboard clock appeared to be going backwards with their hopes of a result long gone.
The game’s outstanding player, Billy Bodin, had put Oxford in front on ten minutes, volleying home after Aidan Stone had parried a long range shot into his path.
Matty Taylor added the second from close range, on 27 minutes, as Vale appealed in vain, and wrongly, for offside, but with maybe more justification for a foul on Will Forrester in the build up.
Bodin’s volley from just inside the area made it 3-0 on 62 minutes before Taylor headed home at the far post on 66 after a free kick had been allowed to bounce in the area.
Taylor and Bodin both enjoyed success under Clarke at Bristol Rovers, an incidental that will provide neither interest nor much consolation for the manager as he considers how to get his side back on their game after this dismal showing.
Charlton at Vale Park is next. The Vale will have to be much better than this.
Clarke said: “It was a very soft away performance. Our away form has been pretty good and we have seven points out of our last three away league games, but today we were soft, we didn’t really get ourselves going, conceded a really early goal to get their confidence up and were then chasing the game for the majority of it. We had good chances, didn’t take them, but they were very clinical.
“One or two decisions went against us today but that doesn’t mean we have to be soft in our approach
and too many of my players today weren’t at it and we have to respond.
“For the second goal it is a foul on Will Forrester, the third goal is handball when he brings it down with his hand, but I look at the general performance and it was nowhere near the standard we set ourselves.”
Clarke will have to make at least one change for the weekend because Ellis Harrison must serve a onematch suspension having picked up his fifth booking of the season in the closing stages of this game.
James Wilson isn’t expected back from the ankle injury he suffered at Wycombe until the game at Plymouth at the start of December so that leaves Vale light up front.
But they will have to improve all round having made life far too easy for an Oxford side that went into the game without their two top scorers, Cameron Brannagan and Kyle Joseph, who were missing through suspension and injury respectively following their midweek draw at Shrewsbury. Oxford, now 12th, are
one of the teams to have leapfrogged Vale who have dropped four places to 15th.
After watching his side win at home for the first time since the start of September, Oxford manager Karl Robinson praised supporters for helping them come through their second game in four days.
He said: “The fans were brilliant. I think they realised today…..in the last five minutes, the game was done and it was a bit different….but in that moment when we looked a little bit fatigued, they saw that and acted upon it.
“They gave us that momentum to be aggressive and be a bit more on the front foot. I think from that point of view, it was incredibly important for us.
“The players deserve all the credit, and the sports scientists, sports medicine staff after putting the shift in that we have since Wednesday night (to go from) away at Shrewsbury to come here and score four goals against a team who were in the top half.”
DAN Agyei scored a late winner as Crewe Alex beat struggling Colchester 1-0.
The Alex striker nodded home Tariq Uwakwe’s cross in the 80th minute to earn his side a first League Two victory in eight matches.
Interim Crewe boss Lee Bell told the club’s website: “We need to win some football matches. That’s always the most important thing, no matter what has gone before, and if you’re not going to do it in the way we’ve set out to do it – find a way. And they found a way.
“It was a nervous performance in the first half and we played too far away from their goal. We spoke to them at half-time and made some adjustments, and got somewhere near without, again, causing too much of a problem. “Arthur (Okonkwo) has kept us in the game with two brilliant saves.”