Stuart McCall: Scunthorpe are not safe yet

Posted Sunday, January 13, 2019 by PA

Scunthorpe boss Stuart McCall insists his side are still far from safe in Sky Bet League One despite a 2-1 victory at Walsall.

The win was United’s fourth on the spin and it moved them six points clear of the relegation zone.

The visitors climbed to 15th thanks to Lee Novak’s cool finish – his 10th league goal of the season – after a superb solo effort from Walsall’s Nicky Devlin had cancelled out Funso Ojo’s early volley for the Iron.

Scunthorpe’s recent run hauled them out of a slump of seven successive defeats and McCall credited a defensive improvement for the turnaround.

He said: “We had a sticky run. We’ve given so many goals to the opposition with individual errors and, at this moment in time, we’ve cut them out.

“We’re not giving teams opportunities and goals, we’ve solidified. We’ve had seven losses on the bounce – hopefully now we’ll have seven wins on the bounce!

“Our two goals were terrific today. Thereafter, for all the balls that Walsall put in, I don’t think they had a shot on goal so I think we’ve managed the game really well and defended strongly.”

McCall, who confirmed he wants to extend Rangers goalkeeper Jak Alnwick’s loan at Glanford Park, added: “We don’t get carried away but confidence and belief grows with each victory.

“However, Plymouth had a great away win, Gillingham had a great away win so everyone’s fighting down there.

“Teams at the bottom are winning and sucking other teams down to that level – we want to be looking up the table but we know we’ve got a tough run of games now.”

Walsall are one of those teams being sucked into danger – they slipped to 16th and have won just once in 12 league games, prompting boss Dean Keates to promise January reinforcements.

Keates said: “I think everyone needs a lift. We will look to add a few bodies over the next week and it gives us a fresh impetus around the place.

“The players gave everything today, we can’t question that but we need to find a win from somewhere and get some points on the board.

“For long periods of the game we were in control, I don’t remember our keeper actually having to make a save. But we’ve lost the game.

“We feel we definitely did enough to get a minimum of a draw out of it. We will learn a lot about ourselves. This is the time that you have to stand up and be counted.

“Confidence takes a hit. Performance-wise we are doing okay for long periods of games. Today we looked the more capable team but we just aren’t helping ourselves.

“If we can add experience, we will – but with experience comes quite a big price tag.”