Head Coach Mat Sadler is keen to see his side put right the wrongs from Saturday’s performance against Newport County when the Saddlers take on Crawley Town on Tuesday night.
Head Coach Mat Sadler is keen to see his side put right the wrongs from Saturday’s performance against Newport County when the Saddlers take on Crawley Town on Tuesday night.
It was a disappointing afternoon at the Poundland Bescot Stadium against the Exiles with first half goals from Bryn Morris, Will Evans and Harry Charsley condemning Walsall to a 3-0 defeat.
But with the nature of how February has panned out for the Saddlers, the next game is right around the corner and Sadler is keen to put Saturday’s game behind the group.
“Win, lose or draw, the last game doesn’t owe you the next one and we have to put ourselves right for what will be a completely different game against Crawley with the way they play and their style of play,” said the Head Coach.
“Ultimately it has to be about us and we have to start the game better, the task is to get back to being us.
“We have gone through a little period where there has been that little bit of a momentum shift through the stop start nature of getting ourselves up for games like the one on Tuesday night against Morecambe and it not happening.
“Whether that played into the sluggish start today, I don’t know but all we know is that we have got to put it right on Tuesday night against Crawley.”
One positive to come from the defeat against Newport was that midfielder Aramide Oteh returned to action for the first time in four months following a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Sadler was pleased to see Oteh back in action after he replaced Josh Gordon at half-time in a tactical switch from the Head Coach.
“It was good to see Rem,” he continued. “We had a good bench, so we know we have changes on there and I clearly had to make changes at half time to try and get a different edge into the game.
“For me, it was disappointing that I had to do that with Ryan Stirk and Josh Gordon because of the pros and the people that they are but I had to make changes at that point and I wanted to change the complexion of the game a little bit with the change of shape that we did.
“I’d like to reiterate that that is no slur on Josh and Ryan because they work and continue to work incredibly hard for the team and the group.
“I think it was one of those days and we have to dust ourselves down and move very quickly on from it.
“We need to continue to show who we are, be positive with each other, show that body language to get ourselves onto the next thing and that is what we have to do.”