The skipper turned up the heat in the promotion race ahead of tomorrow’s crunch derby against Shrewsbury.

The Saddlers are six points behind the League One play-offs after nine wins in their last 13 games and Butler reckons their big-spending rivals have more at stake.

He said: “They have more to lose, Bournemouth have spent massive amounts and Doncaster are an ex-Championship club, the pressure is on them and we’re enjoying it.

“There are teams up there who will feel pressure. Bournemouth have said they are going to get automatic promotion with the games they’ve got left.

“One of their players came out and said ‘we’re not cocky, we’re confident’ and they’ll be under pressure.

“I’ve been in the play-offs a few times before and you’ve got to enjoy these times.

“I was at Blackpool and twice at Scunthorpe and they were brilliant times.

“As a team we were favourites for relegation at Scunny and we were favourites for relegation here.

“It’s two fingers to those who wrote us off at the start of the season.”

Walsall have faced two successive relegation battles – only surviving on the final day of the season in 2011 – before this year’s late play-off charge.

They have already beaten their points total for the last two years and Butler insisted the Saddlers can use their experience of fighting the drop.

“Relegation is real pressure, people lose their jobs because of relegation, promotions make jobs and you can get better paid,” said the double player of the season.

“The pressure of dealing with relegation battles is handy because we know how to handle it.

“There’s no pressure on us, that’s what it is. If someone offered us 52 points with 11 games to go you’d take that. It shows you how far we’ve come as a squad.

“I’m not being disrespectful to us, though.

“I think we’re a good team and we can be one of the best in the league. Some of the football we play at times is unbelievable.

“We need to keep what we’re doing and play with a smile on our faces.”