Ali Smith believes the closeness of the two teams’ league positions makes the Vale’s match against Edinburgh University an important one.

The two teams are locked on 34 points in the Lowland League ahead of tomorrow’s clash and so it represents a chance to jump ahead of them and go three points clear.

With only a few games left of the league season, every point is massive as teams scramble to finish as high up as possible. Vale’s season has promised much but also frustrated in equal measure and they will be desperate to finish on as much of a high as possible and prove that they can compete higher up in the league than the table currently shows.

Smith said: “It’s a big game because of how close by the teams are in the league. It should be a tough game because they are ahead of us in the league so it would be good to get a result against them.

“I think we played well against Stirling Uni until the last ten or fifteen minutes when we maybe switched off a bit. So we can be confident of getting a result.

“Since I’ve come in it has been good to get some game time. I’ve been injured for the last couple of weeks so I need to try and get back in.

“But the boys have been doing well and have had some good results.”

The midfielder is currently on loan from Hibs, where he has unfortunately been told he will not be handed a new deal for next season. He revealed that there have been no discussions with regards to a move and as such he is playing to win a future somewhere.

“I’ve been told that I’m not getting a new contract at Hibs. There hasn’t been any chat about getting anything else sorted, so hopefully it’s something that gets sorted in the next few weeks.

“I will just need to keep playing and trying to do well for the rest of the season to try and secure something”, he said.

Vale will be boosted by Wednesday night’s hard fought victory over Whitehill Welfare and will be looking to build momentum. However, the uni also beat Welfare last time out and if the league is anything to go by a close match is in store.