Port Vale conceded an awful goal in the very first minute and a late penalty as their relegation fears deepened after a poor home defeat to Lincoln City on Saturday afternoon. It was a performance devoid of confidence, quality and goal threat from the Valiants.
Team news
Manager Darren Moore brought top-scorer Ben Garrity back into his starting eleven while James Plant returned from injury to make the bench. Loanee Alex Mighten and Ryan Loft dropped out. Dan Jones was ruled fit to play as left-back in a back four.
First-half
The Valiants may have been hoping for a good atmosphere for Darren Moore’s first home game, but instead the home side got off to a disastrous start. In the very first minute, Nathan Smith took a free-kick and played the ball straight to Joe Taylor. With Ripley out of position, Taylor had the easiest task to fire the ball into an open net. It was about the worst possible start to the game Moore would have wanted.
It was nearly two-nil, minutes later when the Vale failed to clear a cross but Lincoln couldn’t convert. It was a nervy start by the home side who were guilty of countless misplaced passes. In contrast, the visitors were bossing the opening stages and causing Vale’s defence problems.
The Valiants’ first half-chance came from a free-kick on fifteen minutes with Lowe heading it well wide. There was another chance from a set-piece with the Lincoln keeper saving from close range from Chislett. However, goal threats were few and far between which prompted the home fans to show their frustration.
On the half-hour mark, Vale were reliant on an interception from Sang to stop another Lincoln attack while another move was stopped after the referee spotted a handball by the Imps forward.
Ben Garrity just failed to get his head on a Sang cross on 33 minutes as the Valiants at least upped their pressing game with ten minutes to go. However, Lincoln were still the side creating the better chances and Vale were grateful for some confident handling from Connor Ripley to keep the lead to a solitary goal.
There was a flash of skill from James Wilson on 43 minutes when he turned and his long-range effort forced a save from Jensen. From the resulting corner, Debrah headed it over as Vale finally put Lincoln under some pressure in the final moments. However, once again, Lincoln trumped Vale’s play with a move that saw Hackett’s close range effort blocked by Sang. A second goal for the visitors could have killed the game.
It was a nervous, unthreatening, low quality and error-strewn half by the Valiants who failed to put the Lincoln goal under any sort of sustained pressure. It left the home side with it all to do in the second forty five.
Half-time: Port Vale 0-1 Lincoln City
Second-half
Darren Moore made no half-time changes, but presumably the players on the pitch still had his half-time words ringing in their ears. The first Vale chance came from a flash of skill from Chislett on the right but no-one could convert his cross. However, a high back pass from Debrah which nearly beat Ripley was symptomatic of Vale’s nervousness.
Chislett was prominent in the opening stages with some good pressing but just like the first-half, Vale were unable to put the Lincoln defence under any sort of consistent pressure. One good Vale move on 53 minutes saw the ball drop to Wilson in the box but the keeper smothered it from close range.
With the game slipping away from Vale, there was a mistake by Ripley as he gave the ball away but he managed to recover and save. Ripley redeemed himself with a fine save from the corner.
However, Vale’s chances were ended when Dan Jones fouled in the box in added time. Reeco Hackett made no mistake from the spot to seal the three points.
You can probably guess how this half unfolded. There was a change in formation, subs brought on but the deficiencies from the January window meant there wasn’t much fundamentally that Darren Moore could do. Vale remained toothless and largely clueless as this game and possibly their League One status slipped away from them.
Full-time: Port Vale 0-2 Lincoln City
Closing thoughts
This was a poor performance and an awful result for the Valiants. It’s difficult to lay any blame to the manager who has been dealt a terrible hand with the players available to him after such an awful January window.
In terms of player performances, this was a poor display by the side. Credit to Tom Sang who dealt with some sustained attacking on the right and Connor Ripley, who, a couple of nervy moments apart, was a confident presence at the back. However, apart from that, this was a below par performance. Ben Garrity, who is returning from injury, understandably wasn’t quite at it while the likes of Jason Lowe, Jenson Weir and the subs didn’t influence the game. James Wilson and Ethan Chislett both had occasional flashes of skill while defenders Smith, Jones and Debrah all looked error prone.
New manager Darren Moore’s challenge just gets more and more difficult with Vale now firmly entrenched in the relegation zone. Should the Valiants lose at home to Fleetwood and there will be many predicting that their tenure in League One may be rapidly be coming to an end.
Please note the following stats components may take a little while to update after the final whistle
Match stats
Port Vale: Ripley – Sang, Debrah, Smith, Jones – Lowe, Ojo (Loft) – Chislett (Massey), Garrity, Weir (Dipepa) – Wilson
Unused subs: Leutwiler, Iacovitti, Plant, Grant
Vale bookings: Ojo, Sang
Vale goals:
Attendance: 7,148 (670 visitors)
What a disaster league two next season national league 2025-26 smerthwate may have bankrupted the club these owners are taking this club out of the league with their insistence on flitcroft is so wonderful I will not renew my season ticket next year if he is still here
I’ve got a question, who told Nathan Smith he could play football, I am fed up of supporting Port Vale Nil.Finally can someone “PLEASE” wake Carol up and tell her to get shut of Flitcroft, or at least tell us what is really going on at the Club they are destroying, The local council and Smurf couldn’t do it but you are Carol,by Stealth
I think we will definitely go down with squad we have.its a case of rebuilding in the summer and give league 2 a chance
That was a dreadful performance. Painful to watch. Zero confidence throughout the team. The players looked confused as to what system & tactics they were meant to be playing. Wilson up front alone had no chance. To stay up this season vale need massive improvements in every department.
Peter we have given division 2 far to many chances, with these results and most of the playing staff, we have got, someone has said it will do for Vale fans they will put up with anything, it just goes to show ,Carol has purchased the club, but they have an idiot running it, as he sees fit
Looks like we will be heading for the conference with the recruitment.
Moore has taken on a very difficult task with an injury hit and weak squad without quality League 1 options to select from. Three consecutive defeats is demoralizing, but not too surprising. It perhaps also highlights that overall in the circumstances Crosby made a decent fist of the job in the first half of this season
3 of my family are not renewing season tickets next season, MOORE has taken on a big task,…… flitcroft is taking us down the bury fc route
Can’t understand why Carol keeps protecting Flitcroft when he is clearly responsible for all recruitment which is very clearly nowhere near good enough. If we go down she will have bough a club that in 4 years and 4 managers later has gone nowhere and back where we started. Why can she not see that the team is nowhere near good enough for league one football. They can’t defend that is clear by our loses and goals conceded, and we can’t score that is clear by our lack of goals and wins yet still she is adamant about this big plan which he has convinced her of . We’ll I for one won’t be going again whilst he is there my season ticket is in a draw at home. And I won’t keep watching this stupid playing it out from the back crap that clearly doesn’t work.
We are living through the longest of relegation battles, starting with the departure of Conor Hall followed by the premature departure of Worrall, Pett, Benning, Wilson and Harrison.
A decision to go with a strategy of young loan players where where the best are moved on because they are too good for league 1 and the others are moved on because of lack of game time.
Finally culminating in the poorest transfer window.
It’s to late to start calling for heads to roll, the damage is done, but a return to using more sensible language when communicating with fans and others would be good and a bit less ego also.
In little more than a year we have stripped the team of spirit and energy replacing it with a data driven approach totally unsuited to a team like Port Vale.
Truth is we never took decisions to secure ourselves in this league with an inevitable conclusion.