Alex Nicholls keeping the Saddlers faith

Alex Nicholls today insisted Walsall can beat the drop - despite their season spiralling out of control.

Rock-bottom Saddlers have to win 10 and draw one of their final 22 games to reach 50 points — the minimum required to stay up during the last three seasons.

They have won just five this term — and only four times in the last 25 games — and are yet to replace Chris Hutchings, who was sacked as boss over two weeks ago.

But Nicholls is confident the Saddlers, seven points from safety at the bottom of League One, can survive.

"There's still half of the season left to play and we're not a million miles away from safety," he said. "If there were five or ten games left then maybe it would be a different situation but there's plenty of football to play.

"If we get on a run of good performances, with the amount of games coming up, we can get ourselves up the table. The lads are still confident that we can get out of this."

Caretaker Dean Smith has been in charge for three games since the sacking of Chris Hutchings earlier this month and has drawn two and lost once. And Nicholls believes there has been an improvement.

He said: "We've done a lot better in the last three games. We've scored seven goals and two of those have been away from home."