Wallsall’s woes go on as Iron finally hot
TWO superb second-half strikes settled a tight contest between League One’s lowest scorers as Scunthorpe picked up their first win of the season at the expense of fellow strugglers Walsall – much to Iron boss Russ Wilcox’s relief.
Hakeeb Adelakun lit up Glanford Park with a mazy run and powerful finish that went in off the post – three minutes before Gary McSheffrey found the top corner with a free-kick from 35 yards.
The Iron were almost made to rue a mistake from defender Niall Canavan, who misjudged a long ball forward and allowed Tom Bradshaw to nod the Saddlers a lifeline with 20 minutes to play.
But they clung on for three welcome points, leaving Wilcox to proclaim that there is momentum being built on the back of a difficult opening fortnight.
“I don’t think I’ve seen two better goals in a game – they were both wonderful strikes,” he said.
“At 2-0 we looked very, very comfortable.We looked the team likely to get the next goal and go on to get four or five.
“But the third goal was the key goal. It was very disappointing from our point of view, but Niall has held his hand up and his performance afterwards was solid.
“We were edgy after the goal and understandably the crowd were too, but we saw the game out, even if I’m not sure we did it comfortably.”
Walsall had two good openings to take the lead in the first half, both of them falling to Bradshaw – who remains the only Saddler to score a goal this season.
He was unlucky with a header, following an Anthony Forde free-kick, that home keeper Bobby Olejnik clawed away at full stretch, but should have done better when firing over the bar from eight yards after a pull back from the byline.
Scunthorpe went ahead in the 51st minute when Adelakun broke through midfield and fired in with the help of the woodwork.
McSheffrey’s superb set piece which followed almost immediately was even better, nestling into the top corner with Richard O’Donwell beaten. Bradshaw capitalised on Canavan’s hesitancy in the 70th minute but despite applying pressure the Saddlers did not create enough to claim an equaliser.
“That’s as bad as we’ve played until we scored the goal,” Walsall boss Dean Smith said.
“There was no fluency in our movement and we didn’t pass the ball well.
“The important thing was to stay in the game but we gave two horrible goals away. I think Richard will be disappointed with them too.
“I can’t explain why that first hour was so poor.”