Saddlers blogger looks into his crystal ball

So the misfortune of others this week has seen the gap to safety for the Saddlers reduced to one solitary point, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.

The boardroom conversation at Plymouth that concluded with 'Gentlemen, things are desperate, there's only one man who can sort this out . . . Peter Ridsdale' must have truly been something to behold.

While their fate has given us a huge helping hand, I do sympathise with the plight of Argyle fans who are probably now worrying as much about whether they will have to be starting up AFC Plymouth as they are about relegation.

Fingers crossed that things work out for the Green Army, off the pitch at least.

Back to the Saddlers, with 14 games to go (8 of them at home) the time has come to get out the tarot cards and astral charts, consult the tea leaves and, ignoring the inane ramblings of phone-in presenters, start to make some end of season forecasts.

The remaining fixtures of the relegation battle can be split into the following 3 categories:

1. Defeat is not an option

Three trips down the M5 to Swindon (ok you have to turn off and go up that big hill but you know what I mean), Yeovil and Plymouth are massive must-not-lose games.

We've done reasonably well at all three venues in recent times – Scott Dann's late winner while playing up front in a cup tie at Home Park; a couple of midweek wins at Huish Park, including the one in the monsoon where Clayton's goalkick reached the halfway line and still went out for a corner and that Dean Keates goal at the County Ground all linger in the memory.

The first two of these six-pointers are our very next two away games, and I'd say we need at least two draws to stay in with a shout.

Our visit to troubled Plymouth isn't until April. It is possible that they will have clawed back all or most of their 10 points by then, or alternatively they will be dead and buried. Either way we'll need to get something from down there.

(Target 7 points, minimum 4 points)

2. Need to get something

Deano has said that our fate will be decided in the remaining home games and who am I to disagree with the man dubbed (by my mate at least) the Ginger Mourinho?

We still have to play host to Rochdale, Orient, Hartlepool and Brentford before May. And we can probably put this season's 'Big Club in Crisis' Sheff Wednesday into this mid-table group too.

Ideally we could do with beating them all, in reality we can only really afford to lose to one of them and we probably need three wins out of these fixtures.

(Target 13 points, minimum 10 points)

3. It'll be tough but . . .

The remainder of 2010/11 sees clashes with Southampton home and away, trips to Oldham and mk scabs (although defeat to them should never be an option either), and the visits of Brighton and Charlton. Four of them scheduled for the last five games.

By definition these should be the hardest fixtures as they are against the best teams in the division. So far we've not taken a single point off any of the current top six. However come the end of the season you can usually guarantee that a couple of these teams will start to wobble and bottle it.

Somebody has to take advantage of this, why not Dean and the boys?

(Target 10 points, minimum 6 points)

So if you tot up the potential points, the minimum total puts us on 50 points, which is a fighting chance, but the target amount to try and chase down is 60 points.

Tough but definitely do-able.