Angry Hutchings blasts his players

Angry Walsall manager Chris Hutchings has blasted his under-performing players and insisted they cannot afford to repeat their Oldham no-show again this season.

The Saddlers, who failed to register a shot on target, went down 1-0 at Boundary Park thanks to Pawel Abbott's 78^th minute header on Saturday.

They slipped to 12^th in League One as boss Hutchings ripped into his men and demanded immediate improvement.

He said: "You can't repeat that anywhere, simple as that, if you play like that you're going to get beaten. We didn't come out with any credit, there weren't too many positives at all.

"We said a few home truths and we've got massive game at Leeds tomorrow, so we'll see if we bounce back and what the application is like.

"We watched the video on the way back and were in yesterday to fix things we need to improve on – basically passing to another red shirt."

The Saddlers failed to impose themselves on an Oldham side who had only scored 11 league goals at Boundary Park this season prior to the clash.

Hutchings admitted his team's failure to perform the basics led to their undoing.

He said: "We started well for five minutes but it went downhill from there. We didn't retain the ball, pass it well, we got caught on it and the decision making was wrong.

"It was a very disappointing performance after we played so well on Tuesday at Bristol Rovers. Talk about chalk and cheese, it couldn't have been any different.

"It was a major disappointment, decision making, passing – call it what you want it was very poor from us."

The Saddlers travel to second-placed Leeds tomorrow and Hutchings admits they will need to up their game to stand any chance.

He said: "It's a big game, they don't need any geeing up for it but it's going to be tough. We didn't come up to the levels we expect from our lads."

To add to their woes, Clayton McDonald sustained an ankle injury in the north west, making the defender a doubt for the Elland Road trip.

Hutchings added: "Clayton has rolled his ankle and we picked up a few other niggles, so we'll have to assess them."