Seething Stockport boss Dave Challinor criticised both the officials and his side’s defending in their 2-1 defeat at Walsall.

Referee Jacob Miles waved away loud penalty claims for an apparent trip by Saddlers goalkeeper Owen Evans on Nick Powell when the game was goalless.

Ethan Pye’s error then led to Danny Johnson slotting Walsall ahead and more poor defending allowed Aramide Oteh to add a second before Ryan Rydel pulled one back deep into stoppage time.

“The fourth official has the same view as us and says the keeper clearly touches it. Well, I will challenge that, I’ve seen it back and he doesn’t get any touch on it,” Challinor said.

“But we’ll get one of two things – either an apology to say they got it wrong or we get a lie that backs up the referee, because, based on what the evidence shows, there’s no touch there.

“It’s a decision made when the game is 0-0 and when we are in good control. That’s disappointing, but it doesn’t lose us the game, although it would have given us a better chance of winning it.

“Without it being a knee-jerk reaction, it’s very similar to how we started last season in terms of really poor goals and mistakes costing us goals.

“They are horrific goals, no one has cut us open. Mistakes cost you games. What we got better at last year was avoiding them and we have to do that again.”

County created the better chances throughout as Louie Barry and Paddy Madden both had goals ruled out and sent other opportunities off target, while Will Collar side-footed a great opening wide.

Walsall boss Mat Sadler praised his side’s desire to get off the mark for the season after a backs-to-the-wall display.

“There were some real standout performances, but collectively as a team I thought we were fantastic today. I thought we were a proper team,” he said.

“Stockport are a good team, they are going to create openings and when those key, magic moments came I think we stood up to them, took our chances and prevented theirs.

“It was an incredible team performance. My team are growing, they are learning, they are developing and they are doing that while giving me everything so they deserved all they got today.

“They are resilient and absolutely desperate to win football matches. That heart and desire and willingness to throw bodies on the line, we’ll need all of that continuously every single game.

“We needed to be ‘League Two’ in the game today, which I thought we did at times. There were loads of things we need to be better at but loads of things I thought were fantastic.”