Mat Sadler delighted with versatile Walsall

Charlie Lakin opened the scoring after Connor Barrett chopped inside Christoph Klarer to register his third assist in two games.

Klarer levelled proceedings late on as Birmingham eventually broke Walsall's remarkable resolve but the Saddlers had the last laugh as Sam Hornby saved two penalties to guide Walsall to a 4-3 win in the shoot-out.

That handed Walsall the extra point in their EFL Trophy group, which sent them into second place, and Sadler was proud to produce yet another fine performance against a team from the division above.

"They're a hell of a team, a hell of a squad but we knew coming here that it was going to be really difficult.

"We've got a load of players who weren't able to play tonight. So we knew even more that we were going to be heavily reliant on the core there that did.

"We had to be incredibly organised and very good out of possession. Then when we got our opportunities, we had to take them. I thought the first half was maybe tried a little bit too soon to beat them on the counter and our first pass wasn't quite as it needed to be to hurt them.

"And in the second half, something we spoke about was getting down that left hand side and Connor (Barrett) did incredibly well and Dave (Okagbue) plays a fantastic ball into him.

"We get our rewards from that hard work. It was an incredibly good performance. Different from what we've seen in the league and we're going to have to do that in many games this season.

"Just delighted to give the supporters the evening that they had there because to have over 1,000 fans on a Tuesday night in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy is unbelievable support."