Port Vale v Crawley Town: 'My boys won’t let me down and themselves down' - John Yems and Kwesi Appiah look ahead to Valiants trip

John Yems was confident his side can continue their good run of performances as they travel to Port Vale on Saturday.
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“I’m always confident, if I’m not then they (the players) won’t be. We’ll go out there play our best 11 against their best 11 and I know my boys won’t let me and themselves down.

"If the other team are better than you like they were Tuesday, then sometimes you hold your hands up and go, ok what did we deserve and what did we get?” Yems told the Crawley Observer.

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The Reds put in a valiant performance in their 2-1 midweek loss against Bristol Rovers with some fans on social media hailing it as the best performance of the season despite it being a defeat.

Kwesi AppiahKwesi Appiah
Kwesi Appiah

When asked if he agreed, Yems said. “No, because we got beat so it wasn’t the best performance.

"We’ve been putting in some good performances, but you get judged by results at the end of the day. I’d rather us have a complete game where we haven’t touched the ball and it hits someone on the back of the head or whatever in the last minute and we win 1-0, that’s what we’re judged on.

"It’s typical English, they think more of you because you went down fighting and playing well and blahdy-bhlady-bhlady. The lads are giving the same effort in every game, sometimes it works for you sometimes you don’t.”

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“We are playing good football but that’s because we’ve got good players and that’s what we work on. It’d be nice to be able to have everyone out there on the pitch that you want out there. Don’t underestimate what they’ve achieved this year and the teams they’re playing against, budget wise or injury wise.

"Every single one is putting a shift in every single game.”

The reverse fixture between the two sides earlier in the season saw Crawley fall to their biggest league home defeat of the season, a 4-1 defeat at the end of October.

On whether his side have prepared any different with that in mind, Yems said. “No, I hadn’t but thanks for reminding me (about the score) because I won’t be able to sleep at night.

"It’s just different things, we deserved to get beat then and if we don’t perform Saturday, we’ll deserve to get beat again.

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"You can’t judge yourself on that, you start looking (at the table) at the end of April, these things have got a way of coming around. The big disappointment for me this year is not having the players available. It’s compliment to the others that we are where we are, for a small club with such a small budget size we’re doing very well.”

One of those players who has been unavailable is Kwesi Appiah, who returned to play the second half on Tuesday. “I felt good, it was a long time coming. I’ve been working hard behind the scenes with the sports scientists and the medical team to get my fitness back up to a playing condition.

"There aren’t many games for us to catch up on in any other sense, so it’s the league games at the moment we’ve got to get our fitness up in. It was beneficial for me to get that 45 minutes under my belt and will stand me in good stead going forwards.” Appiah said.

After last featuring on New Year’s Day due to injury, Appiah has missed over three months of football, and with time running out in the season, knows Crawley have to make the most of what remains. “Not just my ambitions but the team’s ambitions is to finish as high up as possible. We’ve got our own internal goals so that’s what we’ll be looking to achieve, I’m part of that so it includes me as well.

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“It’s been very good, very good run of games and results. Some convincing performances and some performances where we’ve dug in and shown a different side to our game. It’s been pleasing to see but obviously I’d rather be a part of it than watching on. It’s nice to be back and now I’m back in the mix.”

Despite, being out for essentially the whole calendar year, Appiah is still the Reds top scorer, but knows he has to work hard to win his place back with the form of his teammates. “Not just up front but everybody on the pitch is pushing eachother, whether it’s a defender pushing me or me pushing a defender whatever it may be. It’s not just to get the best out of your position but to get the best out of the team. We’re all pushing in the same direction and want the same goal.”

After Port Vale, Reds face a trip to Exeter City on Tuesday.

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