Dean Smith: Walsall are making their rivals jealous

The Banks’s Stadium chief reckons the Saddlers’ starlets have the division's big boys jealous with his side mounting their shock play-off charge.

But he warned the Saddlers cannot afford to get complacent ahead of tomorrow’s crunch visit of Crawley.

They are four points adrift of the top six with eight games left as Smith battles a limited budget and he believes other clubs will be envious of their position.

“Certainly people with a lot more resources than us will be a little bit envious with what we’ve achieved,” he said, with Walsall eight.

“It’s always going to be about improving and developing the football club. With the results, as well as our players, maybe some clubs will be looking at us with a little bit of envy.

“But there’s still eight games to go and you can start to lose games so you don’t want to look too far ahead. But we’ve done alright this season.

“We have got to make sure we keep going.”

Walsall have won 11 of their last 16 League One games to shoot themselves into play-off contention and could damage 12th-placed Crawley’s own hopes with victory tomorrow.

It comes with their resources stretched to the limit with Smith working without a full-time assistant.

The Saddlers have been without a No.2 since David Kelly left after just nine days to re-join Nottingham Forest with Billy Davies last month.

Smith has interviewed some candidates but is yet to see all on his shortlist as academy chief Neil Woods plugs the gap.

He said: “I was hoping to get something done pretty early like we did with Ned but it’s been a busy time. We are having a decent time at the moment and I don’t want to do anything to upset that.

“Neil has been helping and Jon Whitney has been fantastic and at the moment we’re getting on alright.”