Saddlers fans were brought firmly back to earth last night, as the team deservedly crashed out of the League Cup to Darlington, from the Division below.

At lot of focus will be on Michael Ricketts, following his first half dismissal, but there was a lot more to worry about than that in what was a disappointingly tactically naïve performance.

The central midfield did not perform on the night, to the extent that no one got in front of the strikers at all. The combination of Taundry and Hughes looks overly defensive and, even before the sending off, we were, in effect, playing with nine men, as neither winger got a pass all night. The very odd occasion they got some quality possession, we did look threatening. In the absence of Mattis, I’m sure Bradley would have been a far better option to play alongside Hughes.

Equally, both Sansara and Palmer looked defensively suspect and were given a torrid time by a lively Darlington attack. The main problem in defence, however, was the poor performance from new signing Roberts, who lost his man as early as the first minute (Ince producing a decent save) and then proceeded to do it four or five more time in the first half, including being way off his man when they scored the equaliser (although Sansara, skinned for the cross, and Palmer, easily beaten by the winger for the knock back, were also to blame).

Roberts topped his performance by limping off in the second half, with Manny Smith coming on in his stead.

Iberhe, Ince and Gerrard were all outstanding, the number nine providing our only attacking threat, and the other two dealing well with the crosses coming into the box.

The other problem, however, was the way we dealt with the sending off. At half time, the lack of possession we were giving the two wingers was an obvious weakness. It was crying out for a change to be made to a 4 3 2, or a 4 3 1 1, with either Reich or Demontagnac coming on to try and link up with Iberhe and, possibly, Bradley to play in midfield. Instead, we carried on the same way until Darlington took the lead, by which time we were chasing the game and, despite throwing players forward towards the end, we still did not create enough quality in the last third.

No, I know we are missing Weston, Boertien, Mattis and, now, Ricketts from out first choice line up, but we have to get performances like this out of our system quickly and the need for some experienced central defensive cover and, most importantly, someone who knows where the back of the net is was thrown into sharp relief.