Walsall’s Daniel Kanu ‘showed what he is all about’ in victory over Chesterfield

Daniel Kanu opened his Walsall account in style with the goal that steered the Saddlers to a 1-0 victory over Chesterfield, and his manager is confident there will be more to come from the on-loan striker.

The goal from the Sierra Leone frontman was all that separated the sides in a game lacking in chances but full of incident, with nine yellow cards brandished by referee Zac Kennard-Kettle, including two to Walsall’s Charlie Lakin.

His sending off midway through the second half saw the Spireites press for an equaliser but home keeper Myles Roberts was not tested. The closest the visitors managed to get were off-target headers from central defensive pair Tom Naylor and skipper Chey Dunkley in added time.

Kanu’s goal came two minutes before half-time as the Charlton loanee brushed aside two defenders before placing his shot beyond the Chesterfield keeper from the edge of the area.

Boss Mat Sadler said: “It was a brilliant goal for Daniel and he showed what he is all about. I can’t say I had anything to do with the way he bustled through two tackles with his aggression and then the composure he showed with the finish was very good.

“He is a top striker. He has a way of creating his own chances because of his pace and his power and I’m sure we will see more of what we saw today. He ran himself into the ground today.

“He is a player I worked hard to bring in. We had highlighted him but he was going to League One for a long time during the summer, but then the cards fell for us. He was one I’d courted for a long time.

“The sending off meant we had to ride the weather and I don’t like doing that because we want to be on the front foot but all credit to the lads as they were amazing in seeing it out.”

Chesterfield’s assistant manager Danny Webb said: “I thought we defended really well first half, so we were really disappointed to concede another poor goal from our perspective.

“The biggest disappointment, though, was that we never really looked like scoring, bar the last couple of free headers at the end when they were down to 10 men – we didn’t really carve them open.

“It has been a disappointing week with Crawley when we were losing 2-0 at home, Crewe away (lost 7-1) and then today. Avenge is a big word but four times we played them (Walsall) last season and we got a point and it’s now one point in five, so they certainly have our number but we didn’t help ourselves.”