MANAGER Mark Cooper declared it was ‘crisis over’ after watching his side thump Port Vale 5-2 at the County Ground on Saturday.

Two goals from Massimo Luongo and strikes from Dany N’Guessan, Nile Ranger and Nathan Byrne sealed the victory despite some nervy moments when Vale pulled matters back to 3-2 with 10 minutes left.

With his tongue firmly in his cheek the Town manager insisted he was happy the club were out of crisis mode following losses against Walsall and Oldham in their previous two outings, and was pleased with how his players responded to his calls for them to work harder off the ball.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind paying to watch that as a spectator and at times in the second half it was end to end and there was some really good football from ourselves in there,” he said.

“I was pleased with the performance because we worked hard all week on pressing and trying to get them to get the ball back because we are a dangerous side when we have the ball, and that’s how it turned out.

“After the ‘crisis’ of losing two games it’s good to be back on track. We’ve worked on trying to press, you could see that, and it was a good team performance and it’s crisis over.”

The Town boss admitted nerves set in when Vale pulled the score back to 3-2, but after they were immediately lifted by Nathan Byrne’s strike, Cooper was able to praise a number of his players’ performances.

“When you’re 3-0 up and it gets back to 3-2 you think only one thing is going to happen and when that (Byrne’s goal) went in we knew we had won the game,” he said.

“Sometimes when you get a really young group of players they can become naïve a little bit and that’s how we conceded the two goals but we rode the storm and were convincing winners in the end.

“That’s probably the best Dany (N’Guessan) has played and he’s scored again, and if he play likes that we’ve got no problem at all.

“Jay (McEveley) is a good player and is experienced and calm, knows the game and is a good professional.”

“I thought Massimo (Luongo) was outstanding today, probably our best player, and he took the game by the scruff of the neck and the step over for his second goal was brilliant.

“We changed our system a bit and hats off to the players because they have taken a lot of stick this week but they’ve bounced back and shown what they are capable of.”

Nathan Thompson left the field on a stretcher after colliding with the post while trying to stop Tom Pope’s goal from crossing the line but the defender appears to have only suffered a dead leg.