Fleetwood 0-1 Walsall – Report

Walsall made it ten points out of a possible twelve and inflicted the first home defeat in eight months against a strong Fleetwood side.

Make no mistakes we rode our luck but our defence continues to remain strong and have now kept ten clean sheets already this season, one shy of the eleven we had during the whole of the last campaign.

Walsall boss Dean Smith was adamant he was going to re shuffle his tiring pack following our disastrous performance in the cup and he kinda stuck to his guns. Out went Mathieu Manset and Anthony Forde, in came Ashley Grimes and James Baxendale. Top scorer Tom Bradshaw and Sam Mantom were missing through injury again.

It was the hosts that had the first real chance of the game when Gareth Evans half volley went inches wide following a pin point cross from Stephen Crainey.

Moments later Richard ‘safe hands’ O’Donnell thwarted Martin Paterson, whose curling shot was heading into the top corner only to be parried wide by the Walsall ‘keeper.

Up until our goal on thirty five minutes we very rarely threatened only half chances from Cook and Cain but this was a typical away performance.

A mix up in the Fleetwood back line saw a ball fall to Romaine Sawyers, who shot a sweet strike into the corner – I felt the ‘keeper should have had it covered, but we didn’t care as it sent the 440 travelling fans to Blackpool Pleasure Beach happy!

Fleetwood continued to bombard the Walsall goal and time and time again, Richard O’Donnell was on hand to deny the Cod Army.

The brief moment O’Donnell was beaten – Paterson rounded the Walsall ‘keeper but his shot was expertly averted by Paul Downing.

Walsall held onto a massive victory which puts them nicely into fourteenth position with a local derby with Coventry coming up and hopefully the return of leading scorer Tom Bradshaw.

Things are just slightly beginning to look positive…….