Walsall Head Coach Matt Taylor was disappointed with his team’s performance against Carlisle United and is now looking for improvement in tomorrow’s Papa John’s Trophy tie with Cambridge United.
Tristan Abrahams scored the only goal of the game after 88 minutes on Saturday as the Saddlers fell to their first away defeat since mid-September at Brunton Park.
Taylor was frustrated the 293 Walsall fans who made the long trip to Cumbria didn’t see a better performance and admitted his side fell below the required standard.
“We were nowhere near as good (on Saturday) as we were on Tuesday and that’s the disappointing thing for me,” he said.
“I’ve asked the players for more consistency in their performance and we got that on Tuesday, we got a higher level of performance then but we didn’t get that.
“It is a difficult one to take because I felt like we had enough of the ball but we probably didn’t use it well enough.
“We spoke in the week about their strengths and we didn’t deal with them well enough. A point would have probably been a fair result but we haven’t taken the chances that we have created.
"We should have scored two goals in the first three minutes. Ironically, we started the game excellently but when you don’t do your job at set plays then you get punished.
“I look at the group of players that we have got and the performance that we have put in isn’t good enough based on them, not based on the opposition or who we play.
"I’m disappointed that we haven’t been able to continue our run going away from home. Having said that, we have now got to look at it, digest it and then feedback to the players because we have got another big game coming up on Tuesday night.
“As always, I’d like to thank the fans for their support, for coming to support the team. They would have expected to turn up and to see a better version of the team than they saw. I’m disappointed for them, we’re disappointed in the dressing room.
“The players are upset with their performance levels and now what they’ve got to do is put that right in the next game we play and that is on Tuesday against Cambridge.”