Guyana international Liam Gordon ready to refocus on Walsall

Gordon has been away from the squad for 10 days on international duty and helped his side to a 2-0 victory in Hamilton, against a Bermuda side managed by former Saddler Kyle Lightbourne.

He then played in the 0-0 draw with Montserrat in Barbados on Tuesday.

The two results mean Guyana have every chance of qualifying for the Gold Cup, a competition in which Gordon played four years ago.

While his team-mates were visiting Cleethorpes and London for league games, the 23-year-old checked in to Bermuda, Trinidad and Barbados as well as undertaking two long haul flights to and from the UK.

Gordon said: “It’s been a whirlwind to be honest but a great experience. I touched down in the UK on Thursday morning and still need to catch up on sleep.

“It was intense – the schedule, the travelling, the preparation that goes into international football – but it was all worth it.

“I love playing football and to play for my country and help them towards qualification has been really special as well.

“To score as well which doesn’t happen very often was really sweet and the two goals we got came at a very important time in the game, within minutes of each other.

“I probably need to practice my goal celebration because the last one I scored was against Harrogate and I didn’t really know what to do then.

“But the results mean we have every chance of qualifying for the Gold Cup with the next round of games in June – it is a competition I have played in before and I just hope we can qualify again.”

Gordon said he had received many messages of goodwill from extended family, friends, team-mates and Saddlers’ fans who had seen the goal on social media channels.

He said: “I would like to thank them all because it’s great to know people are following your progress or noticing what is happening from afar.”

But Gordon is now raring to get back into league action as the Saddlers take on Sutton United at Bescot Stadium today.

He said: “Of course I was following the results and it wasn’t a good one on Tuesday night, but it is important we now put that behind us and go again against Sutton.

“They are a team who are still in with a shout of the play-offs and with games running out they are going to be desperate to get as many points as they can.

“For us we need as strong a finish as possible to the season, particularly when we are playing again at home after two games on the road.”

Walsall manager Michael Flynn repeated his call for his side to be more aggressive and win their personal battles in order to get a result.

He said: “Our stats were good in terms of the area the players covered, we had more shots on goal than them but if you were at the game you could see why we didn’t deserve anything out of it.

“Sutton will come and probably play a pretty direct game, and we have to be able to deal with that. and win the ball more, particularly from the start of the game where we have been hit in the last two.”