Aspin slams ‘disaster’ Port Vale display in hammering by Oldham

Port Vale boss Neil Aspin branded his side’s display a “disaster” as the Valiants slipped to a 4-1 defeat at home to managerless Oldham.

Vale had drawn level through Ben Whitfield six minutes before the break, who cancelled out Callum Lang’s opener for Oldham – who sacked manager Frankie Bunn this week.

However, in the second-half, the Latics ran riot scoring three times, firstly through Mohamed Maouche’s 53rd minute backheel, before efforts in the final three minutes from Gevaro Nepomuceno and Chris O’Grady earned maximum points for Oldham.

And Vale boss Aspin was fuming at the performance, a result which sees the side drop down to 17th in the division.

Aspin said: “Everything is flat, the players are flat, the crowd are unhappy, you can’t gloss over things, the scoreline looks and is a disaster.

“In the first half you couldn’t have seen the scoreline coming, we tried to play positive and win the game but the second goal was a turning point in the game, we were chasing the game.

“The last month has been disastrous for us and we have the toughest game against Lincoln to come in a few days, there’s no point in hammering the players, we have to try and put out a team who will battle and scrap.

“Today was my toughest day in football since I was 16, as I want to do well and we are not doing well at the moment, and it feels like you are letting people down.”

Oldham caretaker boss Pete Wild, who has taken coaching duties in the wake of Frankie Bunn’s sacking on Thursday, was “over the moon” with Latics’ display – with the Greater Manchester club now 11th in the league.

He said: “I’m over the moon, absolutely over the moon for the players, the staff, the club. We constantly have adversity here at the moment but I’m just happy that we are back to winning ways, I love this club, so hopefully we can move forward now.

“As we said, there wasn’t a lot wrong, maybe a little motivation, me and the staff had to make little tweaks today, but we have got our just reward.

“We have strong characters in here and it says everything about the players, I was asking the senior players to help me out and show a reaction, and it felt like every player showed the reaction that we wanted today, I’m very proud of the lads.”