Former Southampton goalkeeper Harry Lewis the hero as Bradford City beat Walsall

The visitors, managed by Bantams favourite Michael Flynn, were awarded a penalty in the third minute when Romoney Crichlow brought down Tom Knowles but Bradford's man of the match Harry Lewis dived to his right to keep out Danny Johnson's spo t -kick.

It was the first of several important saves from Lewis, a summer signing from Southampton would make throughout the match, notably from Johnson and Knowles in the first half as Walsall dominated large parts of the game and Hughes was quick to praise his keeper.

However, Bradford took the lead in the 41st minute against the run of play with their first shot on target, a right foot close range effort from leading scorer Andy Cook - his seventh goal of the season - from Brad Halliday's cross.

Before Walsall could recover, Jake Young added a second with superb 20 yard shot which curled into the far corner of the net to give City a flattering half-time lead.

The visitors pulled a goal back in the 57th minute through captain Donervon Daniels after the Bradford defence failed to deal with a free kick.

Hughes said: "We have got three points to continue our good run of results here, but our play needs to be better. Too often we got sucked into playing a different type of game which we don't usually play. On occasions we didn't handle the balls Walsall continued to put into the box and we needed to be braver in possession. We got a bit a bit anxious. Maybe the early penalty affected us.

"At times we decided to take the easy option and that was when the momentum began to shift Walsall's way, but we also had chances and if we had been more clinical we could have taken pressure off ourselves.

"The most important thing was we got another three points on the board.”