Port Vale 1-2 Derby County reaction – it is a tough night
Players and managers have reacted to Tuesday night’s drama as two late goals saw Derby defeat Port Vale at Vale Park.
It was a bitter result for the Valiants and here’s what’s been said:
Port Vale manager Darrell Clarke
It is a tough night, for sure. The changing room is gutted, the staff are very low but I think we need to be proud of a lot of that performance tonight. We will pick ourselves up; I said to my players in there to ask themselves if they can go home, look in the mirror, and say you gave absolutely everything, be honest with the man in the mirror and see what that comes out with. I think the majority of the players, certainly those who started the game, will come off the pitch and think yes, I was at it.
We are a little bit despondent in there as you’d expect, losing a game in that manner, but we will heal our wounds and I have confidence in the group to pick themselves up and myself and my staff will do that too when we are back in on Thursday morning.
Derby County manager Paul Warne
I thought our overall performance wasn’t bad. You can see what it looks like, the pitch was wow, something else. That is no excuse, I don’t think we could play as well as we possibly wanted. It was sort of an end-to-end game and Port Vale really are a team to play against… they took three points off our debut game so to speak.
We knew it was going to be a tough game and we had to match their effort. For large periods we did although I was disappointed with the goal we conceded. We lost first contact which is hugely frustrating but apart from that I thought we were really good.
Even if we’d lost I wouldn’t have had any complaints with the lads, they did everything we asked, we just couldn’t get the goal we wanted really.
Port Vale defender Lewis Cass
After the boys grafted so hard for 87 minutes, it is a killer blow for us. You can see their quality; they’re clinical in both boxes. I thought we grafted so hard and it is a killer blow.
Everyone will take the lesson from it of how quickly games can change but we have to learn our lesson quickly and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We put a really good shift in and should be coming away with at least a point but it is what it is and we have to look forward to Cheltenham at the weekend.
