Brian Dutton: Walsall lucky to secure Southend draw
Walsall head coach Brian Dutton insists his side were fortunate to leave Roots Hall with a point after a dull 0-0 draw.
Although the Saddlers were relatively solid defensively they were toothless in attack and registered no shots in the second half, despite the hosts playing almost 30 minutes with 10 men.
In fact, Southend looked more likely to score despite having Sam Hart sent off and Dutton was unhappy with his side’s showing.
“It was a fortunate point,” he said.
“Southend were the better team and probably deserved all three points. We’ve got away with one to be honest.
“I’m not happy in the slightest and it’s a big learning curve again.”
Josh Gordon, Coalan Lavery and Max Melbourne were all taken off at half-time, with Gordon and Lavery both on the yellow card.
After Hayden White’s needless red card against Bolton on Saturday, Dutton put emphasis on discipline, and was disappointed with his player’s behaviour - adding that Melbourne was feeling unwell.
“We spoke about discipline before the game and we’ve shot ourselves in the foot with poor discipline,” Dutton added.
“We said that must not happen tonight and then we’ve got Caolan getting involved and getting a yellow card when he didn’t need to.
“Then we had Josh Gordon, it was a soft yellow card for him to be fair, but he then showed his frustration a couple of times after that and I wasn’t prepared to take that risk.
“Max was feeling ill so we had to bring him off.”
