Port Vale supporter Phil Sherwin has his say on events at Vale Park

AFTER the euphoria of the way we progressed in the FA Cup last week, we now have to come back down to earth and get back to the league.

There is no doubt we are due a decent home win, because so far under the new regime we have only actually had two games at Vale Park, one of which we lost and the other we won with our trademark last-minute winner.

Do we stick to the successful 4-5-1 or revert to a 4-4-2? Obviously, the former is paying off away from home, and there are therefore reasons to play it at home as well.

It is not necessarily as defensive as it may sound – you just need good players to support Marc Richards. We played it successfully in the mid-1990s, but then we had Jon McCarthy and Steve Guppy flying down the wings but things are a bit different now.

Simon Richman is fine on the right, and better there because the game passes him by when he is the centre, but Paul Edwards has tended to blow hot and cold of late.

On his day he can be very good, but his day doesn't always appear to be a Saturday. Louis Dodds is proving to be at his best 'in the hole' to use football parlance, because the way he finishes a chance is definitely higher than League Two standard.

With Dave Brammer now pulling the strings behind him and Dave Howland having some wonder goal moments of late, it is not bad unit.

If we did go back to 4-4-2, would the second striker be Luke Rodgers, barely a week after he stated he had played his last game for Vale?

It depends if his attitude is right after the collapse of his proposed move to Yeovil Town and I've no reason to think that it wouldn't be.

I think £50,000 would be a good deal, but I can see Yeovil's point in not wanting to commit at this stage. I don't think we would in the same circumstances, but he is our player so we rightly call the shots.

The confidence gained from last week's remarkable victory should be oozing all over the place, but there is no point in thinking that everything is rosy, because it is easy now to forget the first 80 minutes when we were found wanting.

To be fair, a lot of it was because Huddersfield are a division higher than us and it showed for a while. That's not to say improvements can't be made in our own game though.

We seem to be linked with Yeovil regarding transfers at the moment, as after the Rodgers deal collapsed it looks as though we may be about to try to get Gareth Owen again after his loan spell ends there tomorrow.

It would be a decent signing, and he isn't cup-tied either.

It would certainly be handy for him being as his home is in Blythe Bridge. It just depends how he has taken to a diet of pasties and the use of a club tractor I suppose.

Phil Sherwin is a Port Vale supporter. His views do not necessarily reflect those of The Sentinel