Paul Tisdale hails impact of January signings as Stevenage beat Walsall

Posted Sunday, January 09, 2022 by PA

Stevenage manager Paul Tisdale was full of praise for his January signings after recording a first league win since his appointment.

The League Two relegation battlers beat Walsall 3-1 at Broadhall Way to move four points clear of the drop zone, with new arrivals Michael Bostwick, Christy Pym, Luke O’Neill and Ed Upson all appearing.

Tisdale revealed he was pleased with the quartet and hopes they will continue to help Stevenage climb the table.

He said: “People have said all week we’ve gone for experience. I put it a different way. I think we’ve gone for players that can deliver a performance that is needed.

“They can be 22 or 32, I really don’t care. We have a group of players of a certain age at the moment, but I want a group who can deliver proper performances.

“The group today knew what they were doing and they’ll be tired tomorrow. But we got three points and hopefully the momentum will start to build.

“When you can get signings early in the January window, they can have a real impact in the side. So hopefully we’ll see more of that.”

One of his debutants, Bostwick, had to leave the pitch with a hamstring issue, but Tisdale believes it is not too serious.

He added: “I don’t think Michael’s injury is too bad, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

“We’d had a great start to the game and he made a great impact, I hope he’ll be OK.”

Walsall manager Matthew Taylor, meanwhile, understood his supporters’ anger at full-time and accepted his team’s first-half performance was nowhere near good enough.

The travelling fans booed following the final whistle, after a disappointing display which saw their team go 2-0 down inside eight minutes following an own goal from Rollin Menayese and Chris Lines’ effort.

Brendan Kiernan’s strike gave them hope with 20 minutes to go, but in truth it was a dispiriting performance against a side at the wrong end of the table.

Taylor said: “They (the fans) were right to be angry. What they saw today was too big a disparity between the first half and the second.

“When you make those errors so early away from home, you have an uphill battle on your hands.

“You can’t continue to make those errors. We were dominant with the ball in the second half but it was too inconsistent – the first half wasn’t good enough.

“I won’t make excuses for the mistakes we made today. The players understand that wasn’t acceptable. We haven’t done that this season, which is why it is so frustrating and makes me, the staff and the supporters angry.

“When you give away a goal after 20 seconds, confidence wains and throughout that first half we looked an un-confident team.

“If you don’t compete in any game, you’re always going to struggle.”