One game to go, one place above the drop zone, one point clear and realistically only one team can catch us, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.

Could any Walsall fan who witnessed the shambles left behind by Hutchings four months ago honestly say they imagined this scenario unfolding?

We are in the driving seat for sure, albeit the driving seat of a car going along a rocky mountain pass, a little bit too close to the edge while the kids are squabbling in the back. And I wish we’d had our brakes tested.

But, under the Ginger Mourinho, we have given ourselves a fighting chance of survival. Everyone is bound to have worked out the permutations but here’s the lowdown on the matches that matter:

Southampton v The Mighty Saddlers
WIN at St. Mary’s and we’re safe – as simple as that!

How the Saints impending promotion will affect their mindset is anyone’s guess. Technically they need a point, but as impressive as Huddersfield’s attack is, I just can’t see there being a 17 goal turnaround in their favour. So will Southampton relax or will they be trying to celebrate in style by steamrollering us (with last season’s 5-1 blitzing still fresh in the memory)?

More importantly what kind of game plan will Deano come up with to contain Lambert, Connolly and co. whilst trying to offer some sort of attacking threat?

In reality we have to get a better result than Dagenham, so will it be 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, will Ledesma feature? What if we finally get our first penalty of the season at the 50th. attempt? And is the script written for Olly Lancashire to score against his former club? Talking of ex-players, from a psychological perspective, I don’t think it would be a bad move to include former Saints star and respected ex-manager Chris Nicholl to have a more prominent role ‘out front’ on Saturday. It can’t do any harm.
One thing for sure, the management and the players will be giving 100% and they will be getting phenomenal backing from the fans.

Dagenham, Redbridge et al v Peterborough
We might need a favour from Peterborough though – Barry Fry’s Peterborough. And boy does he owe us. There’s an irony that pretty much Martin O’Connor’s last act for the Saddlers was to get sent to the stands as we crashed to the 4-1 defeat at London Road on January 3rd. which hastened the departure of him and his hapless boss, and that events on the same ground could shape our destiny.

The connections between FCG Fry and Daggers boss John Still are slightly worrying in a non-league old pals act kind of way. So is the fact that top scorer Craig Macfail-Atahigherlevel is a former D&R player.

As with Southampton, you don’t quite know what mindset the Posh will have, do they want to have the momentum to take into their upcoming play-off games or will they be taking it easy?

Hopefully someone at Posh will remember the two mossive favours we’ve done for them – Ian McParland’s double against Blackpool twenty years ago this month and Jabo’s winner against the Scabs two years back both resulted in the Peterborough effect of automatic promotion. Payback time methinks.

Notts County v Brighton
Notts need a result, if they don’t win they could be caught be ourselves or Dagenham. There is also a possibility of the Daggers winning, us drawing and County going down with a 3 goal defeat (as long as they don’t score ten more than us in the process). Brighton are capable of this, or they would be if they had something to play for; unfortunately they do appear to have gone on holiday since their win at the Banks’s so I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Bristol Rovers
Like Huddersfield at the top, Rovers need a pretty major miracle of a 16 goal swing. It won’t happen, but like a lot of Walsall fans back in 1995 I spent a Saturday afternoon checking the teletext (pre Soccer Saturday) just to make sure Chesterfield hadn’t notched 14 goals to spoil our promotion. You have to be on the safe side.

And a few thoughts on Plymouth
I sympathise with their fans and the staff who haven’t been paid for months. Some people will go on about the points deduction, add 10 points to their total and say they wouldn’t have otherwise gone down.

I say it’s not that simple. Those points were deducted in the middle of February and from that point the dynamic of the relegation zone changed.

Peter Reid has been able to engender an us-against-the-world, nothing-to-lose attitude (as we found to our cost at the start of April) since Argyle have been playing catch-up; something that couldn’t have happened if they had been nervously peering over their shoulders from 18th or 19th place.

The way we approached chasing down our points target would have been different and Notts County’s slide down the table into the bottom four would have been swifter. This may well have prompted them to make their second (or was it the third or fourth?) managerial change earlier than they did. Who knows how that would have affected things?

And of course the alternative to administration for Plymouth could have been going bust completely, which would have lead to their record being deleted and there being one less relegation place anyway.

So we travel to St. Mary’s trying to add another memorable chapter to our history of last day deciders.

Four years ago this week Dean Keates wrote himself into Walsall folklore as Dicky Dosh’s team got the result needed on a sunny day at Swindon. Eleven years ago to the day, from a much weaker position, Ray Graydon’s heroes (Walker, Viveash, Rammell etc.) went down but with dignity and defiance at Portman Road.

While exactly thirty years ago Don Penn and Ron Green became Saddlers legends as Alan Buckley’s side relegated Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. Dean Smith and the boys will be in exalted company if they pull off something special on the South Coast.

I believe, so come on you Saddlers!