Manager Jon Brady says Port Vale's relegation from League One is "hard to take" but is sure the club have the foundations to "come back stronger" next season.
Vale's inevitable-looking drop back to League Two after one season was confirmed as Wednesday's 1-0 defeat at Cardiff City left them 11 points from safety with only three games left.
Brady, who took over from Darren Moore in early January on an 18-month contract with the club 10 points adrift of safety, witnessed his team slip to a ninth loss - and fail to score for the 10th time - in his 20th league game in charge.
"It's hard to take," he told BBC Radio Stoke.
"We always had belief that we could do it [but] to score 33 goals in the season is not good enough. You're not going to stay up with that and that's been a problem here.
"Since we've come in, we've kept a lot of clean sheets, I think the gap was probably just too big and if you don't score goals, you don't win games, you don't get three points."
Port Vale relegated after Colwill's Cardiff winner
Brady, who won promotion to League One with Northampton Town in 2022-23, said it is important to finish the campaign well to generate some momentum into next season.
"I've been there before. I've done it with another club and I've been through that and it takes a lot of hard work and we're prepared to roll their sleeves up," he said.
"There is still three games left to play, we've got to be aiming to improve all the time and we want to climb above the team above us and and then we go and reset for next season and work out how we make sure we are better."
With the odds stacked against Vale staying up since the turn of the year, talks over next season with League Two in mind have been underway for a number of weeks.
Brady, co-owner Carol Shanahan and chief executive Matt Hancock, have been drawing up a plan of action for the summer to try to get back to the third tier.
"Discussions happened a while ago. We're working very hard and forward planning," Brady said.
"The reality was in the position we were in, it was probably a percentage of 80/20 that we go down.
"We were realistic, but also hopeful, you never knew, but we're trying to put the right things in place to make sure the recruitment is the best it can be to have the best squad we can with the resources we have.
"We've got to make sure we learn from the mistakes that have happened this season and make sure we work tirelessly through the off- season and make sure our recruitment is bang on and we come back next year and hopefully mount the challenge towards the top end of the league."
Vale play Plymouth Argyle on Saturday, Stockport County on Tuesday, 28 April before finishing the 2025-26 campaign at home against champions Lincoln City on 2 May.