New Swindon boss Mark Kennedy admitted his side’s 4-0 home hammering by Walsall had left him “angry” and “hurt” but had not dampened his positivity.
Josh Gordon robbed Grant Hall, bore down on the goalkeeper and slotted the ball through his legs to start the rout after 33 minutes.
Eight minutes later Jamille Matt got between two defenders to nod in at the back post.
Four minutes after the break Taylor Allen rifled a free-kick into the top corner and substitute Albert Adomah had ample time to spin and pick his spot for the fourth.
Only heroics from keeper Jack Bycroft kept the score down. He pulled off a fabulous one-handed save early on to deny Gordon at the far post and then quickly got down to claw away Gordon’s point-blank downward header.
It was Swindon’s biggest home defeat since 2017, but Kennedy refused to get too downhearted.
He said: “I’m a very rational, balanced man. No one’s going to die today. We’ve lost the football match.
“Am I disappointed? A million per cent. Am I angry? Yes. Am I hurt? Yes. Will I come in Monday positive? A million per cent.
“We’ve lost three points and next week we’ve got a great chance again.
“We are going to lose loads of games of football this year, but we are going to win a lot of football games this year.”
However, Kennedy urged his team to toughen up for League Two football.
He said: “Ultimately, today we played a nice game of football. Football’s not nice. You have to be a killer.
“We played an academy brand of football and Walsall gave us an education on what the league looks like in key moments.”
Mat Sadler praised a complete performance from his Walsall side.
He said: “It was a proper team performance, which has to be the backbone of who we are and what we try and do physically.
“We looked really, really strong and ran the opposition into the ground in the end, which is really pleasing.”
He took pride in keeping a clean sheet against a strong Swindon side.
He said: “The three (Swindon) strikers that began the second half, (Paul) Glatzel, (Aaron) Drinan and Harry Smith, they would get into most teams in this division, as would loads of the other boys.
“Ollie Clarke was one of the best midfielders in the division last season at Mansfield, he’s a fantastic player, and I could go through their team with players that played at a high level.
“So there’s certainly no mean feat to play the way we did today.
“But to do that we had to be resilient. When we needed to be resilient, we defended, we blocked. We looked after each other, which was really pleasing for me. It was just a proper team performance.”
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