Gary Liddle: Walsall need a fox in the box

The Saddlers have struggled to find the target so far this season with Darrell Clarke’s side having netted just twice in five League Two outings.

Striker Caolan Lavery did bag a brace in the Carabao Cup defeat to Crawley Town.

But neither he nor Elijah Adebayo or Josh Gordon have managed to open their accounts in the league – despite impressing with their work-rate.

And Liddle believes Walsall’s forwards may be guilty of trying too hard.

“Our strikers do graft,” the midfielder said.

“To be fair they probably do more work than they should.

“You find strikers here, there and everywhere but sometimes it’s good for them to concentrate on being in the box and be in-between the posts to put the ball in the net.

“But they’ll learn, they’re all young.

“And it’s not just up to the strikers. We all need to show a bit more composure and to chip in.”

Walsall’s lack of goals means they have taken just five points from their opening five matches.

Liddle admits that is not good enough.

And he says every player needs to work hard to ensure the team is more creative.

“We get into good positions but we squander good opportunities,” the 33-year-old continued.

“We’re finding it hard at the minute to score goals, we’re missing that composure.

“But we all need to chip in. Set-pieces for example, they are massive in this league.

“At the rate we’re going we’d finish the season with 18 goals which isn’t a great statistic and wouldn’t get us anywhere near where we want to be.

“It needs sorting drastically. We need to be better with that final pass or final shot – that is what isn’t working for us at the moment.

“Five points from five games isn’t acceptable for the quality of players we’ve got and we know that.

“We need to do better and get more points on the board.”