In both halves, the ball was pumped into our box with scary regularity.
The GK played well but the CBs were terrific which is why we got away with a clean sheet.
If I had to guess, I would say that the ball was lifted into our penalty area, on average and at the very least, once every three minutes. In part, we got away with this because the Vale strikers were not all that good.
A reasonably competent attack might well have given us a thrashing.
When the ball is in your crowded box that often you can always expect ricochets and the like.
It is easy to blame the FBs but Vale were really good at pushing crosses towards the penalty spot from a variety of different angles and varied positions on the pitch. We had no idea how to stop this. The formation change hardly helped at all in that respect.
