Hutchings worries of Walsall burnout

Walsall manager Chris Hutchings has admitted he faces a battle to protect his young squad from burn out.

The Saddlers boss, who signed winger Julian Gray yesterday, knows he has to manage his players' work rate because he has such a thin squad.

They go to Leeds on Tuesday fighting to keep their League One season alive and Hutchings says he is wary of over working his men.

He said: "They've all got to play to their maximum all of the time and it's very tough to keep asking them for that. The top three or four teams do that because they have the best players and biggest squad to handle it.

"We've got games in hand but with the size of our squad it doesn't help us at all. You'd rather have points on the board than have a backlog. We've had to juggle it about but getting results is very difficult."

And he admits even though his squad is full of professionals not all of them have the experience to handle the rigours of League One.

He said: "We've got a squad of 24 professionals but four or five of them are youngsters. We have Sean Geddes, Will Grigg, Sam Adkins and Richard Davies so all of a sudden it narrows it down. Darryl Westlake is a young boy and Netan Sansara hasn't played many games."