'Vale's players need to look at mentality to improve results'

HOW Port Vale start cutting out the goals they have shipped in League One was a topic of debate between Adam Yates and Phil Bowers.

- Clive Youlton

Speaking on BBC Radio Stoke, the pair were discussing just how Darren Moore can get an improvement in League One results with his team sitting second-bottom of the table on goal difference.

Not conceding poor goals is the first thing to get right, while there is the added concern of not scoring enough goals at the other end with big matches against Wycombe Wanderers and Plymouth Argyle to come.

Defensively, errors have become commonplace and Yates, pictured right, said: “I think it’s a mixture of things. They have probably been a little bit too complacent. They have got to eradicate mistakes and the players themselves have to do that, the manager can only say so much.

“The mistakes that have been made have been really poor and no matter what the manager says, the players need to look at their mentality and their concentration. Switching off, not tracking your men, doing the basics and the manager has talked a lot about the basics.

“They have got to the basics properly and that is running around, tracking people, tracking players, pressing people, following things in, and just being switched on. No matter how well or how poorly you are playing that is the minimum requirement as a player and that’s the reason Port Vale are in the position they are in this season because they are not doing the basics well enough.

“And I think the players have got to do more and the whole club has to do better in terms of where it is at.”