Birchall admits ‘abysmal’ second-half display

Port Vale goalscorer Chris Birchall says that the side’s second-half display was not good enough against Leyton Orient and that Vale “deserved to lose.”

The Valiants fell apart in the second 45 minutes after Birchall’s goal had given them a 1-0 half-time lead.

Birchall told the media:  “It was frustrating because we felt like we were the better team, especially in the first half. In the second half we weren’t.

Stupid errors are letting teams back into the game when they don’t even look like they are going to score…

“We were probably abysmal when we went down to 10 men and deserved to lose.”

He added: “It’s really individual errors that are killing us again and I think the lads are getting frustrated because its something that should be eradicated from us and we keep doing it week in, week out.

“We give ourselves a chance, we went 1-0 up and stupid errors are letting teams back into the game when they don’t even look like they are going to score. They came out in the second half and created some chances but up until then I thought we were dominating the game.

“In the half-time talk, the least we wanted was a point, we thought we could go on and win the game and now we’re coming back with a 3-1 defeat. It’s bizarre, but that’s what happens.”