Darrell Clarke: Walsall are still a work in progress

The Saddlers have had an impressive festive period and start to 2020 after a mixed start to life in League Two.

But a disappointing result against the struggling Cumbrian side leaves the club's play-off hopes in doubt and Clarke believes the team needs more improvement before a challenge is realistic – despite being happy with their progress so far.

"I’m angry to be fair," he said.

"I said it earlier in the season that I don’t think we are a top seven team yet and that is me being genuinely honest.

"I have got to turn these boys into a top seven team.

"Like you say, the fans have been excellent and they have been very understanding of where we are.

"They know we are building and they know we haven’t got the resources of the top 10 in this league but we have got to keep plugging away and ploughing away and that is what we are doing – we are making players better.

"I think we are getting better I must say.

"I think there has been a real good improvement over the two or three months but we don’t want that to stop now, we want to keep progressing.

"There are 17 games and 51 points left up for grabs and we have now got to bounce back at home to Morecambe on Tuesday night.

"It’s been a little bit frustrating with our last two away performances because our away form has been very, very good this season barring the last couple.

"I thought the performance was a lot better than it was at Cheltenham.

"We have now got to start stringing some wins together at home, we have won two on the bounce, let’s try and get one on Tuesday and go again."

Meanwhile, Clarke has confirmed that striker Caolan Lavery missed out on the starting XI for the clash after suffering a knock.

"He has had an inject on an injury that he picked up last week against Crawley," he said.

"I thought it would be too much of a risk for him to play three games in a week so there has to be a bit of squad rotation.

"Lavs will be in the team on Tuesday night."