Chris Hutchings vows to fight on

Under-fire Walsall manager Chris Hutchings has vowed to fight on amid calls for him to quit after the Saddlers' 4-1 shocker against Tranmere.

The team sit second from bottom of League One after Saturday's home defeat to a Rovers side who started the day at the foot of the table.

Hutchings faced calls for his head from the Banks's Stadium crowd and also gagged his players from speaking to the media.

But the manager dismissed any thoughts of quitting and admitted he shared the fans' pain as defensive slips from Andrew Davies and Aaron Lescott cost the Saddlers.

The Walsall boss said: "I'm a fan and I'm disappointed - no-one is more disappointed than me.

"But if people make mistakes like Andrew Davies did, then I can't legislate for that. We have to do a lot better. It's the way that we gave goals away that really hurts.

"We've got a lot of work to do to try to stop that and we have to show a bit more quality as well - we didn't retain the ball as well as we should. We've got good players but it's just not happening for us.

"But at this moment in time we're not having much rub of the green and we've got to work extremely hard and so have the players. They have to work harder than they are doing now.

"We'll have to sit down, analyse it and plan for next week because it's a massive game, we've got Huddersfield who are flying high and they are a good side.

"It's Peterborough after Huddersfield, then Bournemouth, Sheffield Wednesday and Carlisle, teams who are going very, very well.

"If that's not a tonic for the players to prove people wrong, I don't know what will be."

Hutchings did not speak to chairman Jeff Bonser in the immediate aftermath of the defeat but hoped to still have the backing of the board.

The manager also hopes to be given the green light to bring in a replacement for midfielder David Davis, recalled from his loan spell by Wolves last week.

He added: "We were busy trying to get people in but we were knocked back on a couple of occasions.

"We certainly need to bolster one or two little areas if we can."