Mat Sadler makes January admission after Walsall's Wembley defeat

Lowe, who scored 18 goals in 30 matches across all competitions during the first half of the campaign, returned to Stoke with Walsall boasting a 12-point lead at the league summit. 

Following his departure, Walsall collected just three wins from the next 21 games to miss out on automatic promotion.  

That would eventually lead to a 1-0 defeat against AFC Wimbledon in the League Two play-off final at Wembley and Sadler pointed to January as a key lesson to learn from.

Sadler, as he alluded to in his pre-match press conference, also singled out the injuries to George Hall and Jack Earing either side of the New Year.

"Recruitment is everything, we know that. We lost three really key players at the same time which we didn't replace in the way that we wanted to," the Walsall boss revealed.

"That's not easy sometimes, especially when you've had such success with what we had. By nature of that, you can see with the group that it's tough. 

"They know that they've lost a very good player and chances that we had, that we would usually take, we maybe didn't take. 

"I don't think there were too many dissimilarities between how we played in the first half of the season to the second half. 

"But what we did have is that ruthless edge that maybe we didn't have in the second half of the season as much. 

"The biggest takeaways is that we've got to recruit well, we've got to recruit to create as deep of a squad as we can, which is always difficult with a club with our budget. 

"It's not like we can hand pick the best people off the top shelf and just keep recycling the best ones. 

"So we have to do things our way, with our identity, and I think you can see that with the likes of Connor [Barrett], Jamie [Jellis], Ryan Stirk and Liam [Gordon]. 

"People that we haven't had for a long time, people that other clubs want. 

"That has to be our identity and we have to move forward in the same way." 

Sadler previously stated that Walsall had a number of agents in contact with him as they searched for Lowe's replacement in January. 

Ethan Wheatley's loan from Manchester United has not been a success and Levi Amantchi, signed permanently from Bromley, has had his moments without necessarily filling anyone with a great deal of confidence. 

Ellis Harrison looked a shrewd loan signing at the final hour on transfer deadline day, after scoring three goals in his first eight games, but tailed off following his return from injury.

On January, Sadler added: "It was weird because in the first half of January, no strikers wanted to come to us because they didn't think they'd play while Nathan was there.

"Then the second part of it, it was really difficult because it seemed like any striker we wanted would end up signing a new contract because we wanted them. 

"It was never a straight road with it and it certainly wasn't for the want of trying, and for the hours and hours spent trying to recruit."