Vale gave Moore as much time as they could - Hancock

Port Vale chief executive Matt Hancock has defended the board's decision not to sack previous boss Darren Moore sooner, despite the club's poor run of results at the time.

Moore was dismissed on 28 December with Vale seven points adrift at the bottom of the League One table and without a win in 12 league games.

The 51-year-old was just under two years into a five-and-a-half year contract, signed in February 2024, when he left and Hancock said Vale wanted to give him as much time as they felt they could to improve results.

"The intention when Darren was recruited was he would build a football structure and department that would set us up not just for the short term but the medium term and we believed that," Hancock told BBC Radio Stoke.

"We don't want to pull the trigger immediately on a manager - we want to give the project as much time as we can.

"But once you start to feel those options have been exhausted it ultimately becomes time and we felt we gave it all the support necessary."

While unable to save the club from relegation when initially appointed, Moore did guide Vale straight back up to League One at the first attempt last season as League Two runners-up.

Hancock, who was speaking at a meeting between the supporter advisory board, the supporters' club committee and club officials, said they went into this campaign with real conviction Moore would continue to be successful.

"There wasn't just a 'hope' that it would work, especially after promotion last season," he said.

"We'd invested heavily and put a lot of support around Darren and the team and we wanted to give it the best possible chance to be successful.

"All these good things were happening but, ultimately, results weren't changing and it got to the point at the Peterborough game [a 1-0 home defeat] that it was like like Groundhog Day - we started well but lost.

"Hindsight's a wonderful thing and it's easy to say you should have done it earlier but we wanted to give it the best shot possible.

"We've still got half a season with a new manager and a transfer window to give us the best chance of staying in League One, so I don't think we over-delayed it."

Hancock said Moore's replacement, Jon Brady, was the "standout" candidate of the five people interviewed for the job.

After delivering back-to-back wins in the FA Cup and Vertu Trophy, Brady lost his first league game on Saturday at Mansfield 3-0, leaving Vale 11 points from safety, albeit with two matches in hand on Blackpool in 20th place.

"We only wanted a manager that saw Port Vale as a project for them - so they actually wanted the job," Hancock said.

"He knows this is an opportunity for growth for him and he definitely portrayed [as being] a manager that [will] connect well with supporters - the way he wants to play football and we've seen elements of that in the first few games.

"Like anything, the proof will be in the pudding."

Vale now have two home games in the space of four days against Exeter City on Saturday (15:00 GMT) and AFC Wimbledon the following Tuesday (19:45 GMT).