Costly errors from Liam Roberts and Liam Kinsella condemned the Saddlers to their third successive defeat, leaving them six points above relegation.
Liam Roberts gifted Cheltenham the lead just after the half hour mark. An inswinging comes in at a comfortable height yet somehow Roberts allowed it to slip out of his hands and into the path of Ben Tozer who drilled it home. Roberts had an afternoon to forget with his kicking ending up in the stand rather than to a team mate.
The Saddlers did manage to get back on level terms. Josh Gordon seemed to have dived in the area and the referee surprisingly awarded a penalty. He stepped up and converted, scoring his first goal of the campaign – at the thirteenth time of trying.
Then in true Walsall fashion we gifted Cheltenham their winner. Kinsella loses the ball far too easily in the middle of the park, Gary Liddle (imitating a full back) then allows his man to skip past him with ease before firing into the bottom corner.
We aren’t going to turn this around if we keep gifting the opposition goals. That was our twentieth goal conceded in just fourteen games – it is not acceptable.
Clarke accepted full responsibility for the defeat yesterday and is still adamant that he is the man to turn it around – pressure is now firmly on the former Bristol Rovers manager – failure to get any points against Oldham on Tuesday night or Mansfield next Saturday will surely set alarm bells ringing to Leigh Pomlett who has reiterated he wants the second quarter to be better than the first.
This cannot continue like this. Is it January yet?
