Despite playing the whole of the second half against ten men Vale were comfortably held by Northampton Town in this desperately dull stalemate. From start to finish this was a drab, dreary, insipid, monotonous, passionless, lifeless, humdrum affair and I'm just glad that I made the sensible decision to get blind drunk before the game started.
There really isn't much to report from the game. We created a couple of chances towards the end and hit the bar, but at no point did we look like we would breakdown a stubbornly defensive display from our hosts. The imagination and creativity that was a feature of our game during August and September has disappeared, and the architect of much of that - Gary Roberts - is looking a pale shadow of the player that began the season in such dazzling form. Unfortunately for us Roberts is our only player with the ability to create flowing football, and clearly when he isn't playing well we don't play well.
As ever we were solid at the back, and Northampton never got a sniff of a goal. After going down to ten men just before the break the Cobblers resorted to playing with two banks of four behind the ball at all times, and soaked up the pressure with ease - although we hardly gave them too much to deal with - and they were never stretched by our feeble attack.
But let's look at the positives. We are still 2nd in the table, we are unbeaten in six games, and we have now kept ten clean sheets in sixteen games - which is some achievement. We are an incredibly difficult team to beat, but at the moment our firepower is non-existent.
On Tuesday night we have Dartford visiting Vale Park for the FA Cup replay, and we'll need to find some verve in front of goal or it could become another FA Cup humiliation.