Walsall star warns of Greenacre

Walsall captain Tommy Mooney believes Tranmere’s Chris Greenacre will pose a serious threat to their play-off hopes tomorrow.

The strike duo played together for a short time in 2002 when Greenacre had just joined Stoke City and Mooney arrived for a loan spell from Blues.

And the Saddlers top scorer saw the potential in Greenacre that is now being realised at Prenton Park.

Greenacre was mainly deployed as a midfielder at the Brittania Stadium but has been prolific at both Mansfield and now Tranmere, for whom he has amassed 50 goals in just 115 starts and Mooney reckons the 30-year-old is one of the best strikers in League One.

“Tranmere are a good, strong, organised side and I think in Chris Greenacre they’ve got for me one of the two standout strikers in the league – the other being Jermaine Beckford,” Mooney said.

“I played with Chris at Stoke and he’s improved a lot and he’s going to be very dangerous and they’ve got other players at the club that have got an awful lot of experience at this level and above.”

Mooney believes that he knows what to expect from Tranmere, having had prior experience of how their manager likes his teams to play.

“They’re a big, physical side and Ronnie Moore doesn’t hide his theory on football,” Mooney said.

“It will be a case of get it forward as quick as you can and play a little bit when the ball is in the opponent’s half but never in your own half. It will be a tough game because they are in the same position as us, but in better form.”

Despite his side being at the bottom of the League One form table with two points from a possible 18, Saddlers are still in touch in the play-off race.

Mooney believes victory over their rivals tomorrow will put them right back in there, while at the same time knowing a defeat may spell the end of their hopes.

“If we’d won three or four of our last five or six games, we would still have had an eye on second spot maybe and I can understand why people are saying that it’s a do or die game,” Mooney said.

“Perhaps it is if we don’t get three points on Saturday and perhaps that would be the season over, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t that way.

“We could go and win and be a couple of points off the play-offs with a game in hand, so it just makes the three points vital.

“If we’d had this bad run in any other season, we would be out of it but because it’s so close and because we’re playing Tranmere, and if you look at the games after Tranmere, and you would expect to do well in those games, we’ve got a great chance.”