Paul Downing: Walsall need a scoring spark

Dean Smith's side are back on the road on Saturday when they head for Fleetwood looking to improve a record of just one win and five goals from eight away games.

And Downing believes they must strike a balance between attack and defence to boost their fortunes away from the Banks's Stadium after they were dumped out of the FA Cup at Shrewsbury on Tuesday.

He said: "We had a good performance at Notts County so we need to build on that and make sure we are hard to beat still, but also looking like we are going to score goals and win games.

"We've got to keep analysing what we are doing as a team and sticking together. We've had some good performances, so we're not going to get carried away with one defeat.

"We didn't play as well as we wanted at Shrewsbury but in previous weeks we've given some good teams very good games.

"We've got to try to be more consistent and get more of those types of performances and we will get results."

The Saddlers have yet to win a league game without leading scorer Tom Bradshaw, who is currently struggling again with a hamstring injury.

But centre-back Downing insists the rest of the squad must start to share the goalscoring burden.

"I think this season he has been a main focal point for us and his workrate is infectious," he said.

"But it's down to others and to us as a team – we've got to make sure that when he doesn't play that we're still a threat.

"That's not down to just the strikers – as a team we've got to be working harder to get in the box and create chances and be braver to get on the end of stuff and gamble really.

"I'm sure we will work on that this week and make sure when Saturday comes that we are ready to go."