'Let's go' - Lee Grant makes Walsall attacking plea ahead of Colchester trip

The Saddlers had gone unbeaten in their opening 11 league matches prior to Monday’s 4-2 home defeat against leaders Salford City.

But that run has also featured seven draws - including stalemates in each of their last five away matches, and Grant feels that opportunities have been there to have more points on the board at this stage.

Grant calls for Walsall to be more ruthless

“I don’t really want to be as black and white as just kick the ball in the back of the net, but it kind of is that,” head coach Grant explained.

“We’ve talked about it as a group. It’s important that we execute better than what we’ve done recently.

“When we’ve had opportunities in games and we’ve hurt teams, but not taken those moments. Come on, let’s take them.

“The responsibility doesn’t just lie with our centre-forwards. It’s our midfielders and our full-backs that we have in aggressive positions - that’s everybody.

“If we’ve given ourselves a base with good defending and good structure and organisation then let’s go and win games.”

Walsall were the last remaining team in the top four-tiers of English football yet to taste a league defeat, but Grant insisted all along that he was paying very little attention to that record.

Instead, he feels that points have been left behind, particularly in the draw at Swindon Town earlier this month, for example.

Grant gives his verdict as Walsall’s unbeaten start ends

And Grant believes the focus to win the next game against Colchester United will not only be intensified by the Salford defeat, but also by other games where he feels his side have left points behind.

“I can’t stress enough that we paid zero energy, weight or emphasis on to that,” he said.

“The main reason for that was because we felt like we had had three losses along the way.

“We’ve had some really flat moments as in: I’m spitting feathers after a game, we’re falling out with each other and we don’t need to see each other for 24 hours because we’ve had some tough ones.

“Then we’ve managed to get back together on a Monday and think, how do we take the learning from all of this?

“So we’ve had some of those. A run like we had was really something for everybody else to be concerned with and not us.

He continued: “Perhaps the lads might feel different? I don’t know. I’m sure they were taking great pride in that.

“Would I have rather lost some games along the way? No I don’t want to lose games, I’m definitely not wishing that on us.

“But it just wasn’t of any significance for us. Like I say, feeling like we’ve let ourselves down on one or two occasions has probably helped us to stay focused on the next game.”