Express & Star

Darrell Clarke's 'hands-on' with Walsall strikers

Walsall manager Darrell Clarke is pleased to see all of his strikers off the mark after taking a ‘hands-on’ approach with them in training.

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Elijah Adebayo, Josh Gordon and Caolan Lavery have all found the back of the net already this season.

Following the departure of coach and former Premier League forward Marcus Stewart, Clarke has taken over specific striker training.

“Strikers gain confidence from scoring goals, I have good competition for places at the top end,” Clarke said.

“We haven’t got an abundance of strikers but it certainly helps if they’re on the scoresheet early on in the season and they’re certainly looking very, very good in training. Very confident, which is obviously good to see for centre forwards.

“It’s not rocket science is it, when I was manager at Salisbury I was doing absolutely everything. It’s working on the strikers, the movement, the finishing, we try to make sure no stone is unturned here. We have a good backroom team that work on different aspects of the team’s development through the course of training.

“I’ve taken a little bit more of a hands-on role with the centre forwards, but if they stop scoring I’ll blame one of my other staff!”