Saddlers blog: Still alive - just

Still alive. Still fighting. The odds are against us still but we are Walsall and that’s the way we like it round here, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.

To be seventh with three weekends of the regular season to go is a fantastic achievement for the Mighty Saddlers. 

As we are unlikely to make up the ever so slight deficit in goal difference over Leeds, it means getting five more points than them over four games, which is a massive ask. Should the authorities bottle it tomorrow and give the fallen Yorkshire ‘giants’ those extra fifteen points that they’ve spent all year whinging on about, then our job becomes just that little bit harder. Just the nine points to make up on the in-form (and pretty good) Southend it is then.

Being Walsall also means that having a run-in that looks good on paper is obviously not as simple as it seems. I worry about having to face Bristol Rovers who haven’t won for ten games ending their bad run against us; and naturally I worry about facing Bournemouth with four wins out of four as well.

Keeping our season alive for as long as possible, whatever the outcome, has one particular advantage in that it gives valuable experience to our younger players in meaningful games.

And how fortunate it was that Cheltenham tried to involve as many of the squad as possible on Saturday. It’s hardly a surprise that a team built by a disciple of Graham Failure (John Ward) and managed by a man who played for Graham Turner (Keith Drowning) should play a particularly unpleasant brand of Donkey Football. Hopefully they’ll disappear back where they came from soon enough.

Fortunately the boys showed what they’re about in the face of the Whaddon Road hostility and Dicky has shown over the past two seasons that he’s pretty adept at getting the team dusted down and ready for the next challenge.  

By Saturday night the race for the League One Play-Offs could well be all over but, you never know, we could still be alive and fighting. We are Walsall after all.