Valiants suffer blip at home, but better times were coming

PORT Vale hit a bump in the road in their promotion quest with a midweek home loss.

- CLIVE YOULTON

JUST when it seemed Port Vale were back on the straight and narrow and heading towards the summit thanks to two wins, they took another step back.

A midweek 1-0 defeat at home to Barrow was not so much a curveball as a sideswipe from nowhere that few saw coming.

Boss Darren Moore was heavily criticised afterwards because of his team selection.

He was back to tinkering again.

It backfired.

He left out Rhys Walters, Mitch Clark, Lorent Tolaj and perhaps most tellingly, Ryan Croasdale.

Despite the two previous victories, the attendance on that night on March 25, was a disappointing 5,894 including 132 away fans. It didn’t look great in a stadium that hosted close to 14,000 on the final day.

Maybe the locals weren’t wholly convinced with what they were watching.

Vale were poor in the first half and Barrow deserved their halftime lead. From the start they looked much the livelier side, quicker to the ball, closed down well and had efforts on goal.

When the visitors' winning goal came it was, like so many goals, highly preventable.