Furious Jon Whitney blasts Walsall defending
Boss Jon Whitney lamented his side’s defending from set-pieces after Walsall let a two-goal lead slip to lose at Southend.
An incredible first-half brace from substitute Franck Moussa seemed to put the Saddlers in control at Roots Hall.
But the Shrimpers mounted a second-half fight-back with Nile Ranger, Anton Ferdinand and Simon Cox winning the points for Phil Brown’s side.
All three of those goals came either from or following a set-piece.
And that left Whitney furious with his team’s defending.
“At 2-0 up you should not lose a game,” the boss said.
“And I’m not going to stand here and offer excuses for my players.
“We keep talking about play-offs and everything else and you come away to Southend and go two goals up, you have got to handle set-pieces better.
“We switched off for the first one. We turned our back on the ball. Southend haven’t opened us up today. We coped with their threat in open play.
“But we can’t keep saying. Set-pieces have cost us. Look at Bolton. It was a direct goal at Wimbledon. I don’t want to fill my team with giants but we have to do better.
“I’m not going to come away and allow three set-pieces to cost us again. We have let it slip. For 60 minutes we contained them, looked strong and stuck to the game plan.
“The first goal is always going to change things. But momentum, we have to deal with it better.”
Whitney admitted he felt sorry for Moussa who has barely featured over the past few months but came on for the injured Erhun Oztumer before netting a brace.
“I feel for the kid,” Whitney added.
“He used to be at Southend. To get two goals and be on the losing team – he is the one person I do feel sorry for.
“But we had a naivety about us. And I will take criticism – I’ve no problem with that. I get accolades when we win. But my players need to accept it as well.
“If you have done everything you can to keep that ball out of the net. If you have given every inch of your body to try and keep the season alive then you can live with yourself.
“But we need to have some home truths on Monday. Finger pointing is needed because we can’t keep conceding from set-pieces. It is killing our season.”
