It’s a kind of Maz-ic asSaddlers fight back
WALSALL boss Jon Whitney was delighted with how his side responded to Rochdale’s ‘sucker punch’ and battled back to claim a point.
Calvin Andrew’s strike looked to have handed Rochdale all three points only for Saddlers sub Maz Kouhyar to snatch a share of the spoils late on.
And Saddlers boss Whitney felt his side were worth their point.
“I thought the lads executed the gameplan brilliantly,” he said. “First half, I thought we were the better team, we contained them.
“The energy was really good and then we get the sucker punch with the goal which I didn’t see coming.
“When we did have a nice passage of play and we put it out wide to Erhun (Oztumer) one v one, creates us that opportunity and it’s nice to see we had six in the box for that.
“It’s great for Maz to come on and get his goal. I think it would have been a harsh result if we wouldn’t have got something from that game.”
Walsall’s Kieron Morris could have capitalised on Harrison McGahey’s misplaced pass but scuffed off target.
Walsall top scorer Erhun Oztumer cut back two minutes from the break for Joe Edwards who slipped under Donervon Daniels’ challenge while Callum Camps’ stoppage-time cross rebounded off the bar as Rochdale came close.
The Saddlers thought they had gone ahead when Daniel Agyei fed Oztumer for a closerange 47th-minute finish only for it to be chalked off for offside.
Dale took a 63rdminute lead when Andrew got the better of Luke Leahy and he stabbed home on the rebound. On 72 minutes the ground erupted when Dale’s Joe Thompson came on as a substitute for his first appearance since beating cancer for the second time.
The home side then nearly added a second after Andrew and Thompson both had chances blocked on the line.
But the Saddlers rescued an injury-time point when Kouhyar stabbed home after good work from Oztumer.
“It was disappointing to concede so late on, but I do believe the opposition deserved something from the game,” said Dale boss Keith Hill. “You could say we’d pinched it if we’d have hung on, but we didn’t and that’s the way it’s going for us at the minute.
“I thought there was a better intensity to our play in the second half. In the first half I felt our players showed signs of playing under stress. I want them to relax.”