Well, the fact that the Saddlers’ squad is down to the bare bones was brought starkly to relief yesterday. With Boertien and Dobson still missing, Mooney not recovered from his injury and Sweeney down with a virus, the eleven that started looked very weak, especially in midfield.

Money decided to go with a 4 5 1, the centre three being a winger, Darren Wrack, and the other two the teenagers, Bradley and Taundry. It proved to be a mistake, as the lack of space in the centre in the first half meant that there was just no room for the threesome to get on the ball, especially against a hard working Doncaster side that was shutting the space down quickly.

Let’s be honest, though, this Doncaster team came into the game in fourth place and I thought showed why they were there. They looked a more capable outfit than Leeds, for example, in that they did try to get the ball down and play, whereas Leeds played a large amount of “hoof ball”. They were also very mobile up front, with players interchanging continually, giving the home markers a very difficult game.

The first half did ebb and flow, though. Certainly Doncaster had a spell of dominance, but that was matched by one from the home side towards the end of the half and Walsall probably had the better chances. Sonko glanced a free header wide which he really should have at least put on target, Bradley headed over when he should have scored and Ricketts and Demontagnac both hit curling 20 yarders narrowly wide with the ‘keeper beaten.

It all came as a bit of a surprise, then, when Doncaster took the lead in injury time of the first half, when a scramble in the box lead to the ball arriving fortunately right on the foot of the onrushing J J Price, who shot home.

We didn’t deserve to be behind, really, despite not playing well. Money, however, decided to leave things as they were for the first fifteen minutes of the second half. It didn’t improve much, however, as Bradley, having a poor game for him, misplaced two passes straight to the opposition ealry on, one from the restart.

Around the hour mark, Money made the change, however, going 4 4 2, with Nicholls on for Taundry. The youngster could count himself a little unfortuanate, however, as Bradley could easily have been the central midfielder sacrificed.

The home team then started to play better and slowly took measure of control over the game, especially once Deeney replaced the ineffective Sonko. (Interestingly, Deeney went on the wing and Nicholls stayed up front, presumably to try and exploit their lack of pace at the back).

Ricketts was unfortunate with a free kick that struck a wall that was nowhere near 10 yards away and Sonko put a volley into the side netting, but, eventually, a right wing corner from Fox was met by the head of Scott Dann, who buried the chance.

Ricketts should then have had a penalty when being clearly held down by Doncaster substitute McCammon. McCammon’s presence, however, did help the Saddlers, as Doncaster stopped trying to play football and just tried to hit the telegraph pole, who was, quite frankly, useless.

Gerrard got the sponsor’s man of the match, but it was a very tight call for me against the outstanding Rhys Weston (when are you going to recall him, John Toshack?). Also a special word for Michael Ricketts. He learned the art of playing the lone striker from Sam Allardyce, the master, and I thought some of his link up play, as he dropped deep and let the midfielders run on into the box, was outstanding. Sign him up!