Darrell Clarke urges Port Vale not to get carried away after Shrewsbury win

Posted Sunday, September 18, 2022 by PA

Port Vale manager Darrell Clarke urged his to players to keep their feet on the ground after Ellis Harrison scored a dramatic late winner to end the Valiants’ three-match winless run in Sky Bet League One with a 2-1 victory over Shrewsbury.

Harrison headed home in the first minute of stoppage time having seen his early opener swiftly cancelled out by Christian Saydee.

The win moves newly-promoted Vale up to 13th in the table, one place behind and level on points with their opponents.

“We just have to keep the consistency,” Clarke said. “We don’t get too high when we win and we don’t get too low when we lose.

“We keep developing and working as we have to do as a football club to compete first and foremost at this level.

“It’s a tough level with some good teams and we try to kick on from here.

“I’m not sure what the timescales are going to be on that, but we’ll keep working on it.”

The hosts started brightly and nearly took the lead after six minutes when Mal Benning headed narrowly wide of the post from Gavin Massey’s cross.

They did go in front three minutes later as Dan Butterworth, making his first start for Vale, played in Harrison to slot the ball under onrushing goalkeeper Marko Marosi.

Shrewsbury responded well though and were level after 19 minutes through Saydee, who marked his first start for the club with a wonderfully worked goal.

The Bournemouth loanee found Rekeil Pyke in the box with a clever backheel and received the ball back before placing it into the corner.

The second half was short on goalmouth action and it looked as though the match was destined to end all square until Harrison’s unstoppable header from substitute David Worrall’s corner sent the home crowd into raptures.

Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill had seen his side make it three league matches unbeaten with a stoppage-time winner over Exeter on Tuesday, but Salop found themselves on the receiving end on this occasion as they dropped from eighth position to 12th.

“I think when you get the euphoria of the other night that’s great, but then what can happen is it can easily work against you,” he said.

“We, in the build-up to the game, know what they’re like.

“You’ve got to make sure you stop crosses.”

Cotterill added that his side have to take the defeat on the chin and quickly re-focus ahead of the visit of Port Vale in the Papa Johns Trophy on Tuesday.

“We had it the other night and we have to accept it today because we needed to do better today,” he said.