Walsall boss Darrell Clarke praised his team for the way they applied themselves in what he described as an ‘end to end game’ against Crawley Town.
Player-Coach Mat Sadler scored the only goal of the game as the Saddlers picked up three points at the Banks’s Stadium on Tuesday night.
Clarke was pleased to see his side overcome their in-form opponents and was happy with how his team went about their business.
“It’s a good win,” he said. “Any win at this level or any level is a good win. It was an end to end game with chances for both teams. I thought it was two good teams having a good go.
“It’s testament to us, four key players out of the starting XI tonight with injuries. I said to the lads this is going to be more of a squad game than any other season and they applied themselves very well.
“They’re on a run of four wins in their last five. They beat Cambridge who are flying and beat us the other week, so we knew we were in for a tough test but we dug in and get the goal from a set piece which was nice because we need to score more from set pieces and the boy Mat Sadler, my Player-Coach has got the winner so I can speak to him Thursday now!”
The Saddlers have lost just one game since February 1st and Clarke feels his side are moving in the right direction.
While Crawley also had good chances in the game, Clarke insists that it’s all about finding ways to win and is hoping his team can continue that as they look to turn draws into victories.
“Winning, just winning. You’ve got to find ways to win with the amount of draws that we’ve picked up,” he explained.
“I said to my players before the game, that’s one defeat in 15 if you count the last five last season. That’s one defeat in 16 now. Six wins, nine draws and one defeat so if that’s not going in the right direction, yes, we would have like a few more of those draws to be wins but that’s a good run that we’re on.
“With four key players out on the night, it’s important we keep building on it. We’ve got two cup competitions coming up and then we’ve got another home game. We had 15 points after 17 league games last season when we had that disastrous October so for me the positive thing is, we are on 16 points after 11 games this season and we’ve got plenty of opportunities to increase that in the next home game.”
Attention now turns to the Emirates FA Cup as the Saddlers host Clarke’s former club Bristol Rovers on Saturday. The game will kick-off at 3pm and you can watch it by purchasing an iFollow pass for £10 here.