Walsall striker Douglas James-Taylor was pleased to see his hard work and determination rewarded with a start against Northampton Town on Tuesday night.
Danny Johnson’s first half goal was enough for the Saddlers to claim all three points at the Poundland Bescot Stadium.
It was James-Taylor’s first league start for Walsall since arriving on loan from Stoke City. He has had to earn his place in the team and revealed his period out of the side has proven to be a learning curve which helped spur him on to fight for his place.
“The mental side of being out of the team, having to run before the game for example, in training feeling like I haven’t done enough to get in the team and then every night I would be thinking about what can I do to get in the team and sometimes you just have to take a step back and just look at the bigger picture,” James-Taylor said.
“Sometimes it is about taking your time and building towards the goal which is to get in the team, stay in the team, do well, score goals and be successful at Walsall.
“I think I needed to get used to what I needed to do in games and the way I needed to adapt my game and I think a lot of it was the mental side.
“I had to get out of my own head, I had to get down to the basics of working hard in training, concentrating on the elements that say Sads (Mat Sadler), Willo (Andy Williams) or DJ (Danny Johnson) tell me that I need to adapt to in the game and just keep grinding it out. Eventually I got my start and I worked hard so hopefully I will be able to play on Saturday.”
James-Taylor played 76 minutes against the Cobblers and impressed on his first league start.
He is keen do the same this weekend against AFC Wimbledon and he was pleased to play his part as the Saddlers ended their winless run.
“We knew we had to react to the poor performances and the poor results that we have had over the past couple of weeks,” he commented.
“The past week in training we have worked hard. In the games, we have tried to keep that same mentality of working hard from the first to the last minute. Last Saturday we ground out a draw and tonight we have ground out a win so same again on Saturday.”
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