Cardiff City 1-0 Port Vale: Valiants relegated to League Two after defeat against Bluebirds

Port Vale’s relegation to League Two was confirmed with a 1-0 defeat at promoted Cardiff City on Wednesday night.

Vale boss Jon Brady said his side would not give up the fight after last weekend’s goalless draw against Wigan Athletic.

But Rubin Colwill’s eighth goal of the campaign finally broke the deadlock at Cardiff City Stadium in the 79th minute and sent Vale down.

Port Vale headed to the Welsh capital to face a Bluebirds team which had clinched promotion back to the Championship with a 3-1 triumph at Reading four days earlier.

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Match action

They knew they had to win all four of their remaining fixtures and hope Leyton Orient and AFC Wimbledon failed to pick up any points to survive.

There was little or no meaningful action in the opening 45 minutes. Joel Colwill forced Joe Gauci into the only save of the half in the Vale goal.

The home side needed a brilliant save from Nathan Trott three minutes after the restart to keep out a Ben Garrity header from a corner.

Yousef Salech and Joel Colwill had two bites of the cherry in front of goal just past the hour mark before Chris Willock curled a cross to the far post for Rubin Colwill to head home.

Reality

“It’s a bit raw at the moment and the reality is kicking in,” said Brady, who came in as manager in January.

“It’s hard to take because we always had the belief we could survive.

“Even tonight we played well against a side that are going to be a good Championship team next season.

“We contained them to one shot on target, but that’s the one they scored.

“We created a few good chances, but didn’t take them. To only score 33 goals in a season just isn’t good enough.

“You aren’t going to stay up scoring that few and that’s been our biggest problem.”

Reset

He added: “We have to reset and make sure we come back next season and challenge towards the top end of League Two.

“We’ll talk about what we need to do better.

“I’ve been in this position before and I know what it takes to come back. We have to roll up our sleeves and work hard.

“There are lessons to be learned from the top sides in this division, like Cardiff. Like the way they got back into shape so quickly when they lost the ball.

“We’ve got three games left to play and I want to overtake the team immediately above us.”

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