Port Vale 3, Oxford Utd 0

UNITED were never three goals worse than Port Vale in football terms at Vale Park on Saturday, but they had a nightmare at set- pieces and it cost them dear.

They conceded two sloppy first-half goals on a muddy pitch and in very blustery conditions, and then could not retrieve the game despite dominating the second half.

And when Gareth Ainsworth struck with a neat overhead kick at a corner six minutes from time to give Vale a great win in their bid to beat the drop, it summed up Uni-ted's miserable afternoon.

On Grand National Day, the Vale Park pitch could be described as soft, heavy in places, downright waterlogged in others.

Indeed, there was so much surface water around the edges where the dug-outs were situated that one could only sympathise with injured skipper Mike Ford, who chose to watch from the sanctuary of the press box, perched up high on the roof of the main stand.

Yet the pitch was only half of the problem. The wind came in gusts, sometimes across the park, sometimes towards the goal United were defending in the first half.

The visitors passed the ball around well at times but these were not the conditions for trying to run with it, only for humping it out wide to where there was more grass and less mud.

Then they had to hope that the wide players would try to get forward and send over a decent cross.

In central midfield, Vale's Ian Bogie was outstanding, combining well with Stewart Talbot and lar-gely running the show in the heat of the battle.

And yet overall, the visitors were reasonably much in control, even against the strong wind, until Lee Mills headed Vale in front on 29 minutes.

Steve Davis crucially slipped when Jan Jansson fired over a right-wing corner and Mills, the man Davis was supposed to be marking, planted a free header down and into the goal. Davis had earlier squandered a great chance at the other end by heading wide from Joey Beau-champ's corner.

United also had an early scare when Talbot headed a free-kick by Jansson against the inside of the post.

Far too often United gave away free-kicks and corners, and they were punished a second time three minutes before the break.

Mills hit a free-kick from 25 yards which deflected off the wall, somewhat fortuitously, straight to Tony Naylor, who slipped a shot past Phil Whitehead.

Just moments earlier, Beau-champ had a free-kick from exactly the same range at the other end, but he put his shot straight down the keeper's throat.

Malcolm Shotton indicated his dissatisfaction with the first-half performance by throwing on Mark Angel and Simon Weatherstone for the second period, with Weather-stone supporting the lively and hard-working Nicky Banger.

The key moment of the game came on 56 minutes when, from a well-flighted quick free-kick from Beauchamp, Phil Gilchrist headed against the inside of the post and the ball was hacked to safety.

Had that gone in, and with United dominant with the wind at their backs, I believe they would have come back to get at least a draw.

But that moment of ill-luck seemed to sap their self- belief and the only other good chance they created was a flicked header from Weatherstone from another Beau-champ corner which was stopped on the line by a combination of goalkeeper Paul Musselwhite and his defenders.

Shotton gave 19-year-old Andrew Rose his first appearance in Oxf-ord's first-team by letting him join the action with nine minutes to go.

But Vale sealed the points with a sucker punch.

Whitehead did well to push over a shot from Naylor and from the corner, whipped over by Jansson, Mills headed forward and Ainsworth smartly hooked it over his shoulder into the net.

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