Mat Sadler speaks out following heavy Bradford defeat
Walsall boss Mat Sadler admitted his side got a taste of their own medicine in their 3-0 defeat to Bradford this afternoon.
The Saddlers struggled to gain a foothold in front of over 16,000 supporters at the University of Bradford Stadium, as the hosts dominated the game with and without the ball.
And after seeing hopes of recording a tenth straight win in League Two go up in smoke, Sadler insisted his side can take plenty of lessons from the game.
“They’re a good, strong, powerful team and they showed a lot of that today,” the Walsall boss said. “They probably did to us what we do to a lot of teams. They got the better of us on the day, they took their chances when they came, and we just have to take that.”
He added: “What I’ll always repeat about our team is that we don’t stop, even when it looked like it wasn’t going to be our day we kept going, kept fighting and kept moving forward.
“When the moments came we didn’t quite take them today, but it’s another game to learn from and reflect on.
“We’ll go into another game on Tuesday night that we’re looking forward to and we’ll continue to move forward again.”
When asked whether he felt the goals his side conceded were preventable, Sadler responded: “I need to see (the goals) back, but credit to the opposition today because they defended well and put us under pressure.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can say about our defenders that is anything but positive, because they’ve been outstanding and will continue to be outstanding for me as will every single one of the players.
“For us it wasn’t quite to be today, we weren’t quite ourselves, but we lick our wounds and keep going.
Sadler also moved quickly to ease concern over midfielder Jamie Jellis’ absence from the squad after a month of rumours linking him with a move away from Bescot.
“Jamie wasn’t well, unfortunately,” Sadler explained. “He’s been fighting an illness this week – the one you have that you think is going to go in a couple of days but doesn’t and it’s kind of got worse throughout the week”
He added: “He’s at home resting up which is a shame because he was desperate to play.
“We’ll see how he is (for Tuesday) because he’s still got to rest, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
When asked about captain Jamille Matt’s injury that forced him off in the first half Sadler said:
“I think he’ll be okay. He took a big bang when he went down but it looks like more of an impact injury more than anything more severe than that.”
