That was a troubling performance by Rovers, against a Walsall team who played well and are probably in a false position at present. The reality is that had it not been for the woodwork and a couple of excellent saves by Scott Davies, it could have been worse.
The big area of concern was the defence, playing like strangers at times and well-taken though the Saddlers' goals were, the marking was woeful. A couple of sides recently had adopted the strategy of pressurising the full-backs and leaving the ball to the central defenders who invariably hit it long. The visitors executed this perfectly and although O'Connor/Feeney had a decent understanding down the right in the first half, very little reached CBT, who was anonymous. The commentary team, who stayed on topic today, wondered if the players had become used to hearing the opponent's movement and the crowd noise made this less audible, but Dave Higgins also thought we failed with some of the defensive basics.
Things weren't much better in the attacking sense, our build-up play was poor and aside from Feeney's unstoppable effort only Khan had a shot on goal late in the game. Vaughan signalled to come off injured, hopefully not out long or it might be a problem. Might be worth giving Burton a game in the EFL Trophy, as while he didn't have a much opportunity to turn things round today, I don't think Ferrier is ever going to be a prolific striker.
Time for Keith Hill to earn his corn...