Walsall 5-0 Crawley Town – Report

After ending a run of 8 hours without scoring on Saturday, the Saddlers made it over 6 hours without conceding and served up an orgy of goals down the other end to smash a truly hopeless Crawley side even closer to the relegation trap door.

Walsall started brightly with Kieron Morris in particular looking dangerous, first having an effort that stung the palms of ex West Brom and Burnley pensioner Brian Jensen in the visiting goal. He was then tripped in the area but, having tried to stay on his feet, waited to long to down and the appeals were waved away. It was one of a hat trick of first half appeals the referee ignored as both Tom Bradshaw and Jordi Hiwula had appeals turned down, the latter looking the most definite of the three.

The on loan Manchester City striker was not going to let the ref ruin his night though and opened the scoring after a quarter of an hour, slotting home coolly after Morris had cut in from the right and delivered a telling through ball.

The Saddlers were in complete control, but there was still a hint of irony as the Ole`s rang around the ground through a five minute spell of solid sideways and backwards passing. A sign of things to come after the break though came in first half injury time when a lung bursting run from Adam Chambers saw him fire over narrowly from the edge of the box.

We were much more direct after the break though, with a Michael Cain volley forcing an excellent stop from Jensen, who moments later was beating away a Tom Bradshaw drive as well. It took until the 65th minute for the lead to be doubled, Hiwula curling a beauty in from the edge of the box to open the floodgates as the visitors folded.

Moments later, Morris blasted a stunning strike from 25 yards past Jensen to put the game to bed. Following his impressive pre-season and his goal at Southend in the cup in August, the fact Morris fell out of favour and ended up on loan at Wrexham must surely be up there with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and the abduction of Shergar as one of lifes greatest unsolved mysteries. Whatever the reasons though, the time away has done him the power of good and he`s become a key player for us very quickly. The idea of him on one wing next season and Anthony Forde on the other could be a truly exciting proposition.

Andy Taylor decided he wanted in on the action and, when his 25 yarder took a big deflection to leave Jensen stranded, you could have been forgiven for thinking the scoring was over. Jordan Cook had other ideas though as he toe poked home in the 89th minute following a run and pass from Cain.

Make no mistake, Crawley were quite possibly the worst side I`ve ever seen at Bescot, and that includes some of the dross we`ve served up ourselves. Even perennial cheat Izale McLeod couldn`t really be bothered to dive around, and if it were possible to get less than nil then our visitors would have surely achieved it tonight.

But you can only beat what`s in front of you, and we`ve lost games like this far too often in recent seasons. Hopefully now we`ve learned to beat the dross, we can prevent it from happening again.