Emotional Shez

A VISIBLY emotional John Sheridan spoke of his great admiration for his players after Argyle bowed out of the FA Cup with Budweiser.

John praised the Pilgrims’ performance and work ethic during their 3-2 third-round replay defeat to League 1 Port Vale at Home Park that was tough for everyone to take – especially the manager.

“I probably haven’t felt like this for a long time when we’ve lost a game,” said John, who watched his young, exciting, side give a team a league above them everything they could handle over 180 minutes, only to ultimately fall short.

“I’m gutted for the players more than anything, just because of their effort they put it. It’s a shame we didn’t get through.”

The atmosphere in Sheridan’s post-match interview was noticeably more candid and emotional than at previous games, as he took time to deliver the right words - eager to praise his charges as much as he could.

“I couldn’t have asked for any more from the players,” he said. “They were tremendous.

“I thought we deserved to win the game. We played some really, really good stuff, and really went for it.

“The work ethic is very good at the moment. Even when we go 3-2 down, we don’t go away.”

“We played a team who are going well in a division higher than ours - it’s just having that killer instinct when you’re on top.”

Whilst dropping out of the FA Cup after such encouraging performances will be one of the more bitter pills to swallow this season, Sheridan knows that the performances he has seen over the two-game tie are a very positive sign for the future.

“It’s tough to take at the moment, so I’ll just have to reflect,” he said, “but everything I asked from the players, they gave it.”

“You just have to accept it and take the defeat, but we need to keep that form we’ve been showing of late.”