Saddlers manager Dean Keates cut a frustrating figure following last night’s 2-1 defeat to Shrewsbury Town in the Checkatrade Trophy.
Goals from Alex Gilliead and Doug Loft were enough to secure Town a place in the next round of the tournament, despite a late push from Walsall, who score what was a consolation goal from Kieron Morris 13 minutes from time.
With a change to the formation for this game, Keates hinted that the performance of his team summed up the overall atmosphere for the tie.
“It was frustrating to lose the match,” said Keates. “I think the performance probably summed up the atmosphere.
“There weren’t many people in the ground.
“We said to the lads before the game that there wasn’t going to be much of an atmosphere so we would have to go out there and create one and we didn’t create one because we didn’t have any urgency.
“We had a look at changing the system.
“We are Saturday/Tuesday now for the next few weeks so we had a little tinker with the formation.
“We wanted to have a look at a different formation, we knew there were going to be opportunities to play through them and you have got to play with an element of risk.
“When it did come off, we managed to cut through them a few times but unfortunately it got intercepted a few too many times.”