Express & Star

Mat Sadler outlines key first half quality that led to Walsall rout

Mat Sadler felt Walsall's first half "resilience" paved the way for them to eventually run out 4-0 winners over Colchester United at Bescot.

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Walsall maintained their 100 percent record on home soil in League Two with a fourth win on the spin on their own patch.

Jamie Jellis opened the scoring six minutes before the break and substitute Albert Adomah added a second with a deft flick from Connor Barrett's low cross in the 79th minute.

Jack Earing then emerged from the bench to seal the deal with a late brace, as Walsall propelled themselves to the League Two summit ahead of the 3pm kick-offs.

Sadler said: "It was a monumental effort on Tuesday but the reasons why we changed a couple (against Leicester) was with an eye on today.

"Listen, there was some tough times in that game especially in the first half. I talk about winning in different ways all the time and we had to be really resilient in that period against one of the best attacking outlets in the division.

"Lyle Taylor alongside Samson Tovide with Jack Payne and Owura Edwards backing that up. We knew that we had to be extremely resilient as a unit and we knew we were going to have to come into a real physical battle.

"During those periods we did really well as a team to ride that out. We won so many headers in our penalty area, clearances, tracked runners, tackles, blocked crosses.

"All of the stuff that you have to do and that period then set us up for the win. I know it says 4-0 on the score sheet and it was a really impressive performance from us but the real work and the proper blood and guts then paved the way for the ending of the pitch where the subs that came on were top drawer.

"That second goal was probably as good a goal as we've seen down here for a while in terms of the amount of passes we made. We worked that ball from one side to the other with that real composure which is something we all felt we wanted to improve on from the first half.

"That little bit of extra composure so it was a great, proper team performance."