Walsall v MK Dons

The Saddlers faced MK Dons in their last league fixture as Jon Whintey looked to end an average season on a positive note.

The Saddlers welcomed Erhun Oztumer, Andreas Makris and Eoghan O’Connell back into the team and Mitch Candlin made his first start. Walsall started brightly with Oztumer looking lively, however it was the Dons who opened the scoring on 16 minutes as a simple lofted through ball split the home defence to find Robbie Muirhead, who finished emphatically. Whitney’s men didn’t react well to conceding and were two behind after 32 minutes as Ben Reeves hit an unstoppable shot from 25 yards past MacGillvray.

The home support were becoming restless and MK threatened further as the half wore on and could quite easily have gone into half-time 3 or 4 goals to the good.

The second half saw two changes as Flo Cuvelier and Kieron Morris replaced Kory Roberts and Mitch Candlin. For a brief spell the new 4-2-3-1 formation gave the Saddlers more purpose in the final third, but a deflected strike from Stuart O’Keefe gave MK a third and put the game to bed.

Erhun Oztumer did pull one back with his 15th goal of the season but Harry Barnes made it another day to forget for Whitney as he made it 4-1 in the 85th minute.