SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens stated he was proud despite watching on as Port Vale inflicted his side’s first defeat in 10 league games.

John Askey’s Vale – who were themselves winless in their previous five League Two encounters – struck once in the early moments of both halves to consign Swindon to their first league loss since going down 3-1 away at Crewe on November 19.

Early injuries to Ellis Iandolo and Mathieu Baudry did not help matters as Scott Burgess opened the hosts’ account in the opening 20 minutes.

A luckless 70 minutes followed as Keshi Anderson was twice denied a fourth goal in two games – in part due to the uneven surface before shooting – prior to his late muscular injury that saw him stand dejected around the edge of the Vale box for the final 15 minutes.

Despite dropping three more points in the race to promotion from League Two, Wellens praised the attitude of his players on a day where it seemed like anything that could have gone wrong, did.

He said: “It was the character that my players showed that pleased me most – 100%.

“We kept doing the right things even after things had started going wrong and we kept our spirit, we kept our energy to keep going until the last minute.

“Midway through the second half, it looked like we were going to score. With 15 minutes to go, we go a man down due to Keshi’s injury.

“But we kept trying to do the right thing and I think if we had scored in that earlier period and we still had 11 men, we might have got something from the game.”

With three more injuries to deal with before travelling down to fellow promotion rivals Plymouth Argyle in two days’ time, Wellens questioned the EFL’s planning of Christmas fixtures.

Asked how he would alter what many managers in professional football often refer to as a hectic period, the Town boss suggested the game between Christmas Day and the new year be pushed back until a Tuesday night in January.

Wellens said: “I think there should be a game on Boxing Day and a game on New Year’s Day because that’s our tradition.

“But why do we need a game in between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day? And then why do we need a game on the 4th?

“We’ve got four games in nine or 10 days, or something ridiculous, but in January, we haven’t got one Tuesday game.

“There’s nothing I can do – it’s down to the EFL.”