BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR DARLINGTON!

Ian Sampson was full of praise for his players after Saturday's 3-1 win at Port Vale.

"I'm delighted with the win and I think it was thoroughly deserved," he said.

"Some of the other results have gone our way as well this afternoon which will help our cause but the most important thing was for us to pick up three points.

"I was delighted with our performance, we rode our luck a little bit at times in the second half but we defended well when we needed to.

"We were under pressure for long spells in the second half but we got blocks in and Jason Steele came up with a couple of good saves. Middlesbrough wanted him to get some games and we were pleased to bring him in. He is a quality goalkeeper and I think we saw that this afternoon.

"We were disappointed to concede so soon after going ahead early on but the game was quite open and stretched and I thought some of our play in the first half was very good.

"Billy McKay is doing really well at the moment, his work rate is excellent and his movement was very good again today. The only reason we took him off was because he was tiring a little bit, he played 90 minutes for Northern Ireland under 21s in the week and I just wanted to get some fresh legs out there.

"Liam Davis and Paul Rodgers both got into some good positions as well but the whole team worked ever so hard. The players have set a great standard over the last few months and as long as they can maintain those standards it makes my job very easy.

"We've got a good squad and it's always nice as a manager to have options. I've known players before who have sulked when they've not been in the team but thankfully we haven't got that here and we are all together as a group.

"Our away form is really good and hopefully we can now build on our last home win against Cheltenham next week. It'll be a difficult game against Darlington though and as I've said before there are no easy games in this league.

"Andy Holt should be stepping up his training next week but Chris Dunn is still a couple of weeks away.

"I am pleased to have my new contract. It's nice to have that bit of security and hopefully Malcolm Crosby will sign his contract in the next few days.

"Paul Rodgers has verbally agreed a new one-year contract which I'm really pleased with and when I offered him the contract he wanted to sign straight away which was great. We will get that paperwork done and then I think he will be the first to sign."