The top six still in sight for boss

The Saddlers are 15th in League One, five points off sixth-placed Norwich, and host the Grecians tomorrow.

With one win in their last five games, Hutchings knows it is vital to not let the leading pack slip away.

He said: "It is important to stay in touch which is why it is important to get back-to-back wins.

"Someone needs to gatecrash there but it is about that consistency. We need to find that and put pressure on, especially come the Christmas period.

"It's a thin dividing line of success and failure. Take your chances and you have a great chance of winning the game, simple as that, and it is not like we have not been creating chances."

But Hutchings, who is without the injured Clayton McDonald and has fitness doubts over Rhys Weston, reckons the Saddlers are not the only team in the mix.

He said: "A clutch of clubs will be saying the same, it is that consistency level. In that run of games you might not have had the best of luck. Last Saturday at MK Dons we could have come away with something and been two or three places further up the league.

"Norwich have won their last four and yet started the season with an horrendous defeat. But you would expect them to be up there, as they have a good squad of players."

Exeter arrive at the Banks's Stadium after a 4-0 hammering at Huddersfield and Hutchings expects the Devon outfit to be desperate to put it right.

He said: "It was tough for them to go to Huddersfield who had been on a 'dicky' spell, so Exeter will be coming up here with a point to prove.

"They certainly won't want to get another beating. I would imagine words were said in their dressing room after last week.

"Like theirs, our players have a point to prove because we have to get back on the winning trail. Exeter have come up, they are a couple of places below us and we will treat them with the upmost respect.

"We know what we have to do, which is get about them and get a result."