Goal-shy Latics are on the slide

Steve Jones slots in Walsall’s second goal.

Walsall 3, Athletic 0

BACK to square one.

After a stirring two-goal salvo secured a point against Colchester at the weekend, Athletic travelled to Walsall with heightened expectations.

Those hopes were dashed in emphatic fashion as a result of familiar failings.

A pair of first-half goals conceded, the first set up by ex-Latics striker Darren Byfield and the second arriving only just over a minute after the dismissal of left-back Lee Hills for a late and reckless tackle, made the game safe for Chris Hutchings’ well-organised Saddlers, who have now won three in four.

As for goal-shy Athletic, another blank on the score sheet resulted in a far less enviable record of just one win in nine.

With two of League One’s top four – Leeds at home and Norwich away – to come in consecutive matches next, it will take a big turn-around in fortunes to arrest the slump.

Once more a dynamic front pairing, this time featuring Byfield and the excellent two-goal Troy Deeney showed Athletic fans what their team is badly missing: A true threat up front.

Chris Taylor was absent with suspected flu, so Nick Blackman and Ryan Brooke – on his starting debut on the ground where he scored his first senior goal last season – started the game.

Blackman was withdrawn after Hills got his marching orders and Brooke worked manfully against the odds as a lone front player after that.

But with Pawel Abbott out until the New Year, a new forward option will surely be at the forefront of boss Dave Penney’s thoughts, with the loan window shutting by the end of tomorrow.

There were few positives on a miserable, wet evening.

In fairness, before the opening goal Athletic had started the game brightly, passing the ball well.

And Joe Colbeck was excellent throughout, running the ball forward with gusto to have a hand in virtually all of Athletic’s brightest moments. His late header hit the crossbar and he deserved a goal.

There wasn’t much else to shout about for the 231 travelling supporters at the Banks’s Stadium.

The first meaningful action of the game saw neat skills by Brooke turn his marker to put a low ball across the six-yard box that Blackman couldn’t quite get to in time.

Colbeck then enjoyed a couple of bullocking runs down the left wing, before the overlapping Hills pulled back a cross that Deane Smalley, running in from the right, could only thrash powerfully wide of the near post.

Three minutes later, Walsall opened the scoring.

Jones played the ball wide for Byfield and the striker made room on the outside of marker Reuben Hazell, before chipping a delicious ball to the far post which Deeney acrobatically turned in with his outstretched right foot.

From looking comfortable, the visitors were left chasing the game with a goal that came against the run of play.

Deeney then fired a shot into the ground which Darryl Flahavan was forced to tip over. It was a sign that the home team, though not enjoying as much of the game as Athletic, were the more dangerous of the sides going forward.

The key point in the game arrived two minutes from half-time, decisively tipping matters in favour of the home side.

As the lively former Chadderton FC man Jones flicked the ball infield with the outside of his foot on the touchline, Hills came piling in from the side to take him out at knee height.

It wasn’t deliberate or malicious. But at the speed he was travelling, Hills had to get to the ball first. He didn’t, and a red card from referee Andy Woolmer was the all-too inevitable result.

Joe Jacobson came on for his Athletic debut at left-back, Blackman withdrawn to leave Ryan Brooke alone up front.

But he had barely taken up his position on the field before Walsall went two up.

Deeney was the provider this time, slipping in Jones down the left and the winger beat Andy Holdsworth in a foot race before neatly chipping beyond Flahavan with the outside of his right boot.

The second half started in farcical circumstances for Dave Penney’s men.

With Kelvin Lomax waiting to come on after Reuben Hazell was withdrawn injured at the break, play started due to the right paperwork not having been completed.

Temporarily down to nine men, Athletic were fortunate not to concede a third when Byfield’s chasing down of a poor Andy Holdsworth back-pass ended with Flahavan blocking his goal-bound effort.

Lomax went to centre-half in the defensive reshuffle and Athletic could have found themselves in an even worse situation when a poor Deane Smalley challenge on Netan Sansara, again on the touchline in an innocuous area of the field, saw him get only a yellow card.

Penney managed to keep things relatively tight after that as the game fizzled out.

Walsall made it three when Deeley beat a weak offside trap to round Flahavan for his second with 10 minutes left.

Substitute Keigan Parker then forced a save from goalkeeper Clayton Ince and Colbeck – who also nearly provided one on a plate for the returning Dean Furman – crashed a header against the bar from a neat cross by captain Sean Gregan.

It was too little, too late for an Athletic side now too close to the lower end of League One for comfort.