It was the Valiants first defeat of the season but no other result looked on the cards because of a lack of poke in the final third of the field, a problem which was all to apparent last season.
Vale have not won a league game after playing three so far and Micky Adams looks set to teach his players the basics once again as they try to pick themselves up for the visit of Darlington on Saturday.
Adams told the Sentinel: “Certainly, looking at the efforts of the boys last night, we may have to tinker with the formation and certainly with the personnel.
“We’ll monitor that as the week progresses leading up to the Darlington game. But we’ve just got to just dust ourselves down and get on with it.
“From having a decent start, it’s now a poor start, so we have to respond and I’m looking for big people to respond on Saturday.”
But Adams did have some praise for the support that the Vale fans gave them on the night.
He added: “I think we’re disappointed with our night’s efforts and disappointed to let so many fans down.
“We had great support there last night and it was all geared for a nice away day.
“But unfortunately, I thought we lost the game in the first 20 minutes because of our tempo.
“I’m not saying they wanted it more than us but I just thought we didn’t settle and it took us a while to get going. By that time you end up chasing the game.”
“I’m bitterly disappointed.”