Darrell Clarke praises Walsall mentality

Midfielder Stuart Sinclair scored the only goal of the game in the fourth minute as Walsall picked up their second win of the season.

An unchanged side from the 0-1 loss to Bradford started the game on the Lancashire coast, which saw impressive performances from Zak Jules, Rory Gaffney and goalscorer Sinclair.

But Clarke says it’s just another three points as he side aims to rise up the league.

“We’ve played better this season and lost, it was a good battling performance, 1-0, coming here with a fair bit of pressure on the boys to respond to Saturday with that gutting last 10 minute goal against Bradford,” he said.

“But they’ve done that, worked really hard, we thoroughly deserved the points on the night, but we don’t get carried away, we take the three points and move on.

“We were on the front foot for a lot of the game to be honest.

“I don’t think they had a shot on target, the keeper’s has to come and catch a couple of crosses.

“A really strong defensive performance from my lads, a fourth clean sheet in nine games.

“We know we still have to do better and be putting teams to bed a little bit earlier than we are doing but we take the three points and try and take it into Saturday.”

Clarke was particularly happy with how his team played to the final whistle after they downed tools when they conceded that late goal to Bradford.

“It’s the mindset of players, it doesn’t matter when you score the goals, you want to win football matches so you have to keep going until the 95th minute,” he added.

“Which I didn’t think we did on Saturday against Bradford, that was my biggest bugbear, when Bradford scored we didn’t respond in the way I expect us to respond.

“The boys responded well tonight, pat on the back, let’s get to work again tomorrow.

“I’m the manager and this was the team I was going to pick to win this specific game, it doesn’t mean that team will be Saturday.”