Darrell Clarke: Bad seven days for Walsall
Walsall boss Darrell Clarke tonight reflected on a “bad seven days” for the Saddlers with a third successive defeat coupled with potentially losing Rory Holden for the remainder of the season.
A 2-0 defeat against a Carlisle side now topping League Two made it three in a row off the back of previously chalking up four wins in succession which had propelled the Saddlers to the brink of the play-off picture.
Walsall now go into a fortnight’s break from action ready to regroup and refresh, but also digesting the news that influential midfielder Holden requires surgery on a knee injury which looks set to rule him out for the rest of the campaign.
“This was a shocking way to start the calendar year and it’s been a bad seven days to be honest,” said Clarke.
“We’ve lost three games in seven days off the back of showing some winning form, and we’ve lost one of our better players in Rory Holden to an injury picked up in training.
“It’s been a really bad week and I apologise for that – the performance today wasn’t good enough and we were miles off it.
“We were second to it, we had a few players that were lacking a bit of match fitness, a few that are in need of a breather, and the best team won.
“It took us 35 minutes to get the ball down and play and that’s too long – we needed people to step up to the plate and combat the fact that Carlisle are a second ball team with high energy.
“There were too many sloppy passes, going too long, players not making the right angles, a mixture of things that didn’t work for us.
“We didn’t look like creating anything of note, there was plenty of hustle and bustle at times but we have got to be a lot better.
“Now we have this break we have got to reset and re-evaluate for the next two weeks.
“Myself and the staff will be working hard to make sure we do the right things with the players, get the right rest into those that need it, and get a lot better from what has been a really disappointing week for us.
“There is no hiding away from that fact and.no hiding away from today being a very poor performance from us which sums up the week.”
Holden’s loss will be a major blow, and Clarke re-iterated that the club will try to alleviate his absence if at all possible by dipping into the free loan market.
“We have to try and look at something because Rory is going to be a big miss for us,” added the manager.
“He is going to need surgery which is probably 10 to 12 weeks if it all goes well and he would then need some weeks training – and there is already only 16 weeks left by the time we play our next game.
“I think we have to get it into our heads that if we get him back before the end of the season it will be a bonus.
“We will try and use the market and it would help the group if we can freshen things up a little bit but there are no promises.”
