Port Vale boss on defender illness and Carlisle United win

The home manager, speaking after the 1-0 win over the Blues, said Jones had been rushed to hospital earlier in the week.

Crosby said he used Jones’ predicament in a message to his players ahead of their victory over Paul Simpson’s side.

“Dan unfortunately was rushed to hospital on Sunday night with severe pains in his stomach [and] sternum – he’s been in a really poorly way a lot of this week,” said Crosby.

“All our best wishes go to Dan and his fiancée Scarlett. He got discharged yesterday, [but] the medication he got to go home with hasn’t worked and he’s gone downhill a bit again today.

“He’s not in any danger but that’s the situation.

Port Vale's Dan Jones (Image: PA)

“We spoke about it before the game – we said there are going to have things go wrong for us on the pitch but let’s put it into context. If you give the ball away, just go and get it back. Dan would have loved to have been out there today.

“We’ll take care of him as a club and hopefully he’s back sooner rather than later.”

Crosby, meanwhile, was pleased with his side’s victory over Carlisle but felt his team should have been more ruthless when on top.

• Paul Simpson: Blues need more 'bravery' to end goal drought

James Wilson’s 50th-minute penalty was enough for the Valiants.

“The team we picked was to try and control the game and look at what they wanted to try and do, and I thought we did that for large periods,” he told the BBC.

“What’s disappointing is we didn’t capitalise on those periods of dominance.

“When you allow a game to go into the latter stages at 1-0 you’re always an error or an individual moment from a team getting something out of the game.

“But we ran around a lot, showed a real togetherness but it’s that ruthless nature – if you want to have a successful season, you have to take the game away from Carlisle earlier on.”

Crosby, though, felt his side kept United at arm’s length during the spells when Paul Simpson’s side put the hosts under pressure.

“The opposition are always have spells. It’s how you negate the length of that spell,” he added.

“I don’t remember them having a lot of clear-cut chances. They put a lot of balls into our box, we defended our box really well, got a lot of first contacts, and when Connor [Ripley, Vale’s keeper] was needed he made a couple of saves from shots from distance.”