Notts County head coach Stuart Maynard hailed gamechanger Charlie Whitaker’s performance as “incredible” after the midfielder starred in the win over Morecambe.
Second-half strikes from Whitaker and Alassana Jatta ensured County climbed to second in Sky Bet League Two following the 2-0 success.
Whitaker was a handful throughout and Maynard said: “It is another clean sheet and I am delighted with it, the lads fought so hard in a really tough game.
“Before the game I said they have a squad of good players, and they will cause us some problems.
“But what a performance from young Charlie Whitaker, absolutely incredible and the subs made a big impact. (Will) Jarvis came on for Jodi (Jones) and he gave those full-backs a terrible time.
“I think if we get the first goal early it is a completely different game, but everyone played their part today and we are going to need that until the end of the season.
“Walsall are super consistent but when you start coming into this end of the season it is never easy and there are probably about five or six of us in and around it chasing that points tally down. But we have to go one game at a time and focus on ourselves.”
Whitaker had the first opportunity of the game with a shot from the edge of the box which was well saved by the outstretched hand of former County goalkeeper Ryan Schofield.
Jatta headed a whipped Jones cross wide before Morecambe responded when David Tutonda’s defence-splitting pass played in forward Lee Angol, who struck the post with keeper Alex Bass beaten.
County took the lead in the 66th minute. Jarvis’ good work down the left flank resulted in a cross in which Schofield could only push into the path of Whitaker, who was on hand to fire home his first professional goal.
The lead was doubled nine minutes later. The pace and power of Jatta turned out to be too much for the Morecambe backline to handle and as he broke through the forward rounded Schofield and slotted into an empty net.
Morecambe manager Derek Adams said afterwards: “I thought we were spot on today with our application, the players have given their all – you see that. They have matched Notts County for 90 minutes and I’m very proud of them for that.
“I’m really disappointed that we have lost the game but I do genuinely see a lot of good signs in this team.
“We created 13 chances and they created 16 and coming away to the side in second place. I said to the players that they’ve got to keep on believing as we are not a team that should be in the position that we are in. We can play, we can run and we can create chances.
“We have to stop the errors however because they are killing us at this moment in time and it’s been like that for a while now but we know that.”
