Walsall bounced back after the dismal display against Barrow last Friday. Yesterday’s match against 10th placed Crawley Town showed a few changes in the lineup. Brian Dutton turned to his more experienced players and brought back Sinclair to play beside Kinsella on the central midfield. In defence, James Clarke was back after missing eleven matches due to injury.
I’ve been criticising Clarke earlier in the season but Walsall has missed him in the defence. His leadership qualities and the way he directs his teammates around him is quite obvious when you watch the live match.
He won defensive free kicks where otherwise the Crawley attackers had been having clear cut chances. That was one of the huge differences I could see from the matches he missed.
Before we have given the opponents sometimes a freeway with defenders backing off and midfielders not able to catch up. This resulted in lots of space for the opponents from the half-line to our penalty box. With Clarke on the pitch though he was quick to get in front of the opponent player and played smart to get easy free kicks. That gave the team a chance to have a break, push up the team and put pressure on the Crawley defence.
I did a quick calculation and from the 18 matches Clarke have missed this season we have only won 12 points. On the other hand the 17 matches he’s been involved in up until now we have won 23 points. That is evidence enough for me to see we need him in the team.
I felt the cooperation between the defenders and Sinclair and Kinsella in midfield worked much better yesterday too. They didn’t give up much space for the opponents as we have been used to. Sinclair and Kinsella bossed the midfield well and worked hard at both ends of the pitch.
After a positive and promising first half, we took the lead in the 55th minute after Josh Gordon had been tumbled over in the penalty box. The resulting penalty was taken by Emmanuel Osadebe who finally got his first goal in a Saddlers shirt.
Unfortunately, we gave Crawley a penalty in the dying seconds of the stoppage time when Liam Roberts rushed out and boxed the ball away but he went into though in the situation and put a knee in the head of a Crawley player which the ref deemed as dangerous play and blew his whistle for a penalty. Maybe a bit harsh but maybe Roberts put too much heart into winning the ball.
All in all, I said before the match that I would be satisfied with a draw but the way we missed all three points feels a bit heartbreaking but not in the same way as the defeat against Cambridge.
All the remaining matches will be very important if Walsall want to go into the last week of the season feeling safe from relegation. It is very important that we build on this match and put in a similar or better display against Bolton on Saturday. I hope he sees that chopping and changing in the lineup and tactics isn’t working. What we need now is consistency and build up confidence in the squad. The results will come if we work hard and with hard work comes luck as well.
The match against Bolton will be another tough test for a pressured Brian Dutton.
Photo by Dimitri Houtteman on Unsplash