Darrell Clarke demands a response from Walsall

Saddlers travel to the capital tomorrow to face The O’s, who are struggling with indifferent form in League Two.

Ross Embleton’s men have won three out of 11 league games this season and sit 20th in the league.

Despite losing 3-0 against AFC Wimbledon in the EFL Trophy in midweek, their last league outing saw them beat Northampton 1-0. Walsall are coming off the back of a disappointing home loss to Salford and Clarke is expecting his men to bounce back, while he admitted he also made mistakes last week.

“The response has to be at 3pm Saturday,” he said. “The lads have trained very well. They’re a good, honest set of lads, they’ve just got to keep improving.

“Even after the four victories, we’ve still got a lot of work to do, and after one very bad defeat where we haven’t performed anywhere near to the standards that we’re capable of, we’ve still gotto keep improving.

“I was disappointed with one or two different aspects and I made my feelings known to the individuals and we’ll learn.

“Young players have got to learn and learn quickly with me because it’s a ruthless world the footballing world. I wait for no man, so they’ve got to be reaching those levels all the time and not have a game where it doesn’t quite go right. I won’t accept certain things but that’s been addressed.

“First and foremost, you look at your own performance as a manager as well. I’m the leader of the group, I don’t think I got all of my decisions right on Saturday, the players certainly didn’t, so we assessed it on Monday morning and got back to the training ground to work hard on those things.”

Experienced defender Mat Sadler, who started the loss against Salford, echoed Clarke’s comments that a reaction is needed and that the way Walsall lost was the most disappointing thing.

“The overriding thing would be a sense of trying to put everything right that happened last week,” he said.

“It was a defeat, it happens, but the manner of it didn’t sit well with us.

“Especially off the back of such good performances in the month previous.

“As has always been the case off the back of a defeat, you’re desperate for that next match to start all over again and put another run together.

“So yeah, the overriding feeling is let’s get back in the saddle.

“They (Leyton Orient) have some real momentum, firstly getting promoted.

“It’s a football club that had a lot of emotion around it in the last few months.

“The way that they’ve handled themselves with that and the (Justin) Edinburgh family has been a real testament to football.

“People have really got behind that because they’ve done things right.

“They suffered an horrendous tragedy.”