Steve Evans praises his Stevenage battlers after another late show at Walsall

Posted Sunday, August 14, 2022 by PA

Stevenage manager Steve Evans hailed his side’s never-say-die attitude after they continued their habit of scoring late goals to rescue a point deep into added time in a 1-1 draw at Walsall.

Danny Rose’s 100th-minute header cancelled out Danny Johnson’s early strike for the Saddlers as the sides, who each began the day with 100 per cent records, shared the spoils.

It was the fifth goal Stevenage have scored after the 84th minute this season after late winners against Tranmere and Reading as well as netting twice at the death to beat Stockport.

“The one thing I promised the chairman and the supporters is that we will go to the end of every game,” said Evans.

“If we are losing 4-0 it might finish 4-0 but we don’t want it to be 5-0, we’d rather it be 4-1.

“For the last 10 minutes of normal time, I thought a goal was coming and when he [the fourth official] put up eight minutes of time added on, I thought we would score.

“When you score late like that, it always seems better than it is because the performance was a step down from where it has been in recent weeks.

“We are still trying to find our feet but we said to the players at half-time and when we had a little water break at the end because of an injury, we do not just lie down and die.

“You find an Elastoplast, you find Sellotape, you hold it together and dig in and fight and that got us a point.”

Walsall’s on-loan striker Johnson fired them ahead from close range with his fifth goal in four games since arriving from Mansfield.

But boss Michael Flynn blamed referee Charles Breakspear and his own players for a failure to see out the game.

“It’s frustrating that eight [minutes] go up and we play over 100 minutes but we’ve still got to do our jobs,” Flynn said.

“But we should’ve killed the game off – we had the chances. And when you’ve been around football a long time you know if you don’t kill the opposition off, they still have that breath and belief.

“If we had got the second goal the three points would have been done and dusted but it wasn’t to be – but we’re still unbeaten. We lacked that killing edge today and that’s very unlike us.

“We let them off the hook because when we played football, we looked by far the better team but we just didn’t do it quite enough or with enough quality.

“We have just got to be a little bit more switched on, on those occasions. But we have been – only conceding one goal in four games tells us we have been.”