Walsall boosted as four return

Paul Boertien, Sofiene Zaaboub, Mark Bradley and Manny Smith are all in contention to play Rovers, who visit the Banks's Stadium in League One on Saturday.

Left-back Boertien has been out for three weeks with an abdominal injury, while Zaaboub missed the 3-1 defeat at Millwall last weekend with a dead leg and Bradley was forced out with back spasms.

Boss Chris Hutchings could still be without Clayton Ince, absent due to a family bereavement, but has been buoyed by the return of the key quartet.

He said: "Mark is OK and Clayton is still away, so we are just waiting to see if he will be back or not.

"Sofi has joined in and if there is no reaction hopefully he'll be in contention, while 'Boats' is training.

"We need everyone fit, especially playing against teams who are higher than us in the league. Tranmere are seventh, right on the shirt-tails of the play-offs, so we can affect a lot of things."

Defender Smith is set to feature, despite being knocked unconscious at the New Den, and Hutchings admitted he thought the 20-year-old would be out, because of old rules stating if a player was knocked out he had to wait two weeks before playing.

The manager said: "I thought it was a fortnight, but fortunately the tests he's done are OK with the doctor and Jon (Whitney, physio), so we're delighted with that.

But Hutchings will be without left-back Netan Sansara, who is struggling to overcome a twisted ankle he suffered in training 10 days ago.

The boss added: "Saturday might be a little too early for him. We thought he'd be available, but after the work he did he had a bit of reaction, so we're not even going to think about risking him.

"These things take time. Sometimes you can get away with it after 10 days and others take three weeks. Unfortunately, he's the latter."