Phil Sherwin: Humble pie never tasted so good
Just as I have been banging on about not scoring enough goals and not beating anyone in the top 10 bar Shrewsbury, we go and thrash the team with the best home record in the division. Humble pie doesn't taste too bad though, especially with a few chips.
We went at them straight from the kick-off and never let them back in it, scoring some superb goals in the process.
Marc Richards's finishing was top drawer and the only slight downside for him was us getting a penalty three minutes after he had been substituted – otherwise he'd have had four.
Rob Taylor was also tremendous and they couldn't cope with his pace. He could go a lot higher when in that mood and just needs to add a bit of consistency to his game.
It says it all that in almost 120 years of league football, Vale have only bettered Saturday's result once away from home. That was when we beat Fulham 6-0 in 1987.
It was a great way to say farewell to the 19th century ground called Saltergate, but hold on – we may be back there in the play-offs in May! After being written off for the play-offs in many quarters, the results went well for us on Saturday and suddenly we are only three points away from seventh place.
There's plenty of work to do yet, but the confidence must be sky high after Saturday. If we can get a good haul of points from the Cheltenham and Crewe games, it really could be an exciting run-in because the final eight games are all against promotion or play-off hopefuls.
The top six look well set but seventh place is up for grabs to half-a-dozen teams.
Northampton are in pole position at the moment but there isn't a great deal between the teams to be honest. Now that we have caught up with all the postponed games we've only got one more midweek game, at Accrington next month, and that can only benefit us in preparation.
It may be a cliché, but we need to take each game as it comes and see where we are at the end of it. We probably need around 20 points from our last 10 games to get to the play-offs, which might mean winning six, drawing two and losing just two. It's hard but by no means impossible.
The roller-coaster moves on to Cheltenham next Saturday, and with them scoring six on Saturday, they will be full of confidence as well. Look at it another way, though: they did let five in!
