The second half performance was much better, yet again, despite the half starting badly.

Luke Chadwick, on loan from West Ham, scored a cracking second for the home side, seemingly to make the tie safe. However, Mark Wright, a few minutes later, produced a cross which left Kevin James with a tap in to continue his excellent scoring record since arriving on loan.

Merson had decided to replace the out of his depth McDermott with Nicholls, and he began to trouble the Stoke defence, especially with his pace.

Nicholls hit the post and, towards the end, Ed de Goey, who had come on for the injured Sorensen, despite his age, made a great save to prevent the equaliser from Nicholls.

The criticism of the performance has to be that we just weren’t positive enough against a team playing with no confidence and in a really bad run of form. This was a very good opportunity lost.

To make things even worse on the day, the improving Bristol City beat Swansea at home and Blackpool beat Hartlepool away to leave the Saddlers just two points clear of the relegation zone and, looking the other way, 14 points behind Brentford in the last play off spot, having played the same number of games. Having gone out of two Cups in a week, the team need to get back to the bread and butter as quickly as possible.

The Fat Controller is reporting in from the ground.

After all the discussion on the board about whether he should play or not, Ian Roper was not fit enough even to make the bench this afernoon.

The Saddlers lined up, as predicted by Stonnall Saddler yesterday, Oakes, Pead, Westwood, Gerrard, Fox, Wright, Leary, Smith, McDermott, Timm, James.

Subs: Gilmartin, Bradley, Osborn, Standing, Nicholls.

Walsall matched the team from the higher division well in the first half, apart from one important consideration - up front.

Stoke were playing like a team short of confidence, hardly surprisingly, in view of their terrible recent home record. The Saddlers, accordingly, coped well with the fairly punchless attacks of the home side, although Sidibe had one golden chance. However, Walsall, despite plenty of possession, were themselves looking unlikely to create anything, with young McDermott looking out of his depth.

The last twenty minutes of the half saw the home side getting more of a grip on the game and keeping the majority of possession. The defence was, however, still coping well.

As the half passed into injury time, Oakes came for a cross and failed to clear the ball properly. A shot came in from distance, Gerrard blocked it on the line and Sidibe knocked in the rebound.

This is one of those games where we desperately need a “plan B”. McDermott is looking out of his depth, Demontagnac is missing from the 16 completely and our only options for change are more of the same sort of thing.