Well, when people talk about “squeaky bum time”, this is precisely the kind of game they mean. With a strong wind blowing directly down the pitch making playing conditions difficult, this could have been a day for the underdog. The fact that it wasn’t it a tribute to the resilience and determination of this Walsall side.

The Saddlers shuffled the pack, following the injury to Scott Dann, in the way most people expected, with Pead coming in and Westwood moving to central defence. We lined up:

Ince, Pead, Gerrard, Westwood, Fox, Harper, Dobson, Keates, Cooper, Butler, Benjamin, with a bench of:

Bossu, Taylor, Sam, Wrack and, somewhat surprisingly, Wright, back in the fold.

On the whole, though, it has to be said that this was a little disjointed as a performance, as both wingers, especially Cooper, struggled to get into the game, while the balding Mullin, who came up from the Conference with Stanley, gave Westwood and, especially, Gerrard a hard game.

The Saddlers did start off as the better side, however, as Dobson and Butler (twice) went close to getting on the end of good moves, but there had been no real saves for the highly rated son of former England and West ham star Alvin Martin to make until 20 minutes in, when a long punt downwind by Ince found the head of Benjamin. His flick on was brought down by Butler, who then produced an exquisite little pass for Harper, in from his wing, to pick up in the inside left channel and then beat Martin with a shot from the outside of his right foot into the bottom right corner. A lovely little goal. Everyone then sat back, expecting the lads to settle down to their work.

Unfortunately, this was not going to be an easy afternoon, as five minutes later, Gerrard lost his man, Mullin (not for the first or last time), he raced onto a long ball forward, Ince hesitated too long and he slotted the ball underneath him. Two mistakes, but Ince really should have got there first.

The goal seemed to knock the wind out of the player’s sails for a while and they only made a couple more chances in the half, with a curling Cooper free kick being well tipped over by Martin and Benjamin producing a weak shot, stretching too far with his left foot, after good work from Butler, nodding down a Fox cross. (Mind you, it was one of the very few decent crosses produced by the left back all afternoon!).

The second half was a tale of plenty of Walsall possession, but, like England in their last two games, an inability to turn that possession into chances. Hector Sam replaced Benjamin after 10 minutes, as a much better option playing into the strong wind, but it was the visitors who struck their blow first.

With the wind carrying the ball into the box, set pieces were always going to be a problem and, after a little flurry of pressure from said set pieces, a right foot cross from the left was flicked on for Williams to head home.

Walsall had another wobble for a few minutes at this point, but then rolled up their sleeves and started to dominate possession again, although, again, without a lot of end product. Eventually, however, Sam won a header in the box, the ball broke to Butler and Andrew Todd must have thought he was about to produce a good tackle, only to find Butler had nicked the ball away from him and he clattered straight into the Walsall forward’s ankles. A nailed on penalty, which Dean Keates duly dispatched authoritatively.

Darren Wrack then replaced Cooper in an attempt to give a bit more spark and, within five minutes, Dobson and Keates did brilliantly to work in Pead on the right. He cut inside, only for his left foot shot to be blocked. The ball fell to Wrack, who hit it first time, only for that shot to be blocked and the ball then fell for Butler, who neatly lifted it beyond Martin with the outside of his right foot.

Stanly had, by this time, given everything, and the Saddlers ran out the remaining minutes comfortably.

Not a great performance, with few individuals gaining any credit. Keates got Man of the Match, but Dobson was the clear winner for me and Westwood has a decent game, considering he was covering for the out of form Gerrard far too often. Butler never stopped working, Sam had a very good cameo and Pead did some good things going forward (although his defending left something to be desired), while Fox defended well, but was terrible going forward. The rest looked a little out of sorts, although Harper did, of course, produce one piece of magic for the opener. Good job it didn’t matter in the end.