Darrell Clarke salutes ‘outstanding’ Port Vale after shock win at Plymouth

Port Vale boss Darrell Clarke hailed an “outstanding” display from his side in their 2-0 victory at League One leaders Plymouth.

Two quickfire second-half goals from James Wilson sealed the win and ended the hosts’ record nine-match winning start at home in the league.

Wilson scored in the 65th and 71st minutes to take the visitors up to ninth.

Clarke said: “The boys were outstanding. We had to come to a side that have won loads of consecutive games here and defend the way we defended and then show some quality when we needed to.

“It was a great team performance.

“It was a good spectacle, two good teams having a right good go and we came out winners.

“I was a little bit animated at half-time as I felt we had more in the locker if we looked after the transition better. The boys responded really well and put their bodies on the line.

“We rode our luck one or two times, but we probably earned that over the course of the 97 minutes.

“We can talk about tactics, but for me it is about how your team respond and work. The lads give everything, every game and to come here backed by 400 fans is amazing.

“Thank you to the 400 that came down and hopefully we made the journey back up worth it for them. It is a long old way to come, and we thank them for that and I thank the players for the really good effort they put in for the football club.

“It was a tough three points and the lads deserve the plaudits.

“We have won two games on the spin and we keep going.

“We are pleased, we had a short summer break and we are delighted to have 29 points after 20 games. We want to keep pushing forward.”

Plymouth boss Steven Schumacher admitted his side were second best.

He said: “We didn’t play well. I thought Port Vale deserved the win, they were the better team probably throughout the game.

“It was one of those nights that was frustrating.

“We didn’t play great, didn’t look like us. but we still created some good chances that we didn’t manage to take, so, yeah, frustrating.

“I just felt as a team – as a whole – we were just a bit flat.

“We never gave this crowd anything to get going for and we probably got what we deserved in the game.

“That might happen every now and again when you are on a run like this, a performance like that gets highlighted.

“We haven’t lost in the league in four and a bit months whatever it is, since the middle of August, so I can’t really put my finger on it.

“But the players understand that. We didn’t do the basics well enough and that’s what has got us to the top of the league.

“We came off it and we got punished.

“Port Vale played well. They had a little bit of energy and the second ball seemed to always keep falling to them and that pattern in the first half gave them the upper hand.”