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Walsall's Nicky Devlin: Beat Shrewsbury and hope for best

Walsall have been warned that rivals Shrewsbury will delight in sending them down on the final day of the season.

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The Saddlers travel to Shropshire on Saturday knowing nothing but victory in the derby will keep them up, and, even then, they need two other results to go their way.

Walsall can leapfrog the three teams above them, but need to move above two to secure safety.

Shrewsbury secured their own survival at the weekend with a 1-1 draw with Coventry, but Saddlers right-back Nicky Devlin isn’t expecting them to be on the beach.

“We have to look to other people to give us a hand,” admitted Devlin.

“But we can only do our part – that’s going to Shrewsbury and winning.

“It’ll be a tough game. I’m sure they will be quite happy to try to play a part in sending us down.

“We know how difficult it is going to be but we’ve just got to go there, be positive and hopefully that will be enough.

“Going off the back of a 3-0 we should take confidence from that into the Shrewsbury game.

“It was a good day for everyone at the club but we need to take that momentum forward.

“It’s only a good day if we can match that performance and beat Shrewsbury. That is what we have to do.”

Walsall kept their first clean sheet in nine games at the weekend, which pleased defender Devlin, and the right-back believes Martin O’Connor’s 3-5-2 system worked against Peterborough after failing first time out at Accrington Stanley.

However, he says the caretaker boss won’t be afraid to change formation again for the final day.

“Peterborough’s squad, when you look on paper, is as good as anyone’s, especially going forward,” he said.

“To keep a clean sheet at this stage of the season when there was so much pressure on the game, it was good.

“We’ve not done that since Fleetwood, which has been a long time for us. It’s good for the defence to build on that confidence wise.

“Since Martin has come in he has tried a few different formations to get a result and performance out of us and he’s picked the right one against Peterborough.

“I think he is very open to different systems, we could chance again next week and do something different. He will do whatever he thinks will help us win the game.

“He picks the formation and personnel based on who he thinks will get the job done.

“But the 3-5-2 allows me and Luke (Leahy) to get forward a wee bit more.

“It also gave us a wee bit more stability having more defenders at the back.

“It didn’t work at Accrington. It did work versus Peterborough.

"So maybe next week it’ll be different again if Martin doesn’t think it would work against Shrewsbury.

“We just need to perform, whatever formation we are in.”