Port Vale's Gareth Owen stunned by penalty decision

Owen almost joined Crewe before moving to Vale in November 2008

Port Vale defender Gareth Owen could not believe that the match-winning penalty was awarded against him in Saturday's 1-0 home defeat to Crewe.

Shaun Miller scored the winner from the spot after referee Chris Sarginson had penalised Owen for a challenge on striker Clayton Donaldson.

"I couldn't believe it," Owen told BBC Radio Stoke. "I'm honest and, if I've make a mistake, I'll hold my hand up.

"I've got a clean foot on the ball and the ball's ended up in the stand."

Owen continued: "It went in a totally different direction to which he was running.

"Clayton himself shook his head and started laughing and, after the penalty was scored, he said to me that it was never a penalty."

Vale manager Micky Adams told BBC Radio Stoke: "I don't mind losing games of football, and I think if you're ever going to be a manager, you have to accept that occasionally things won't go well for you and your team may not play well.

"I'm not saying my team played well, but we certainly didn't deserve to lose it to a penalty that's so unjust it's untrue."

The defeat leaves Vale seven points shy of a play-off spot with eight games left to play. And Owen believes that it will now take a massive effort to make it into the top seven.

"We have to maybe win every game, which is a tough ask," said the Vale defender.

"We'll play 46 games this season and I'm not saying that this result hasn't cost us promotion, but it has cost us a little bit of momentum to try and pick up some more points."