Andy Halliday aims to prove worth for Saddlers

Andy Halliday today insisted he didn't join Walsall for a Banks's Holiday – but admitted he doesn't expect to gatecrash the team.

The Middlesbrough loanee reckons he must prove his worth after penning a deal until January.

Boss Dean Smith swooped for the winger as he looked for the missing spark with the Saddlers fourth bottom of League One.

They go to Dagenham in the FA Cup second round on Saturday with Halliday eyeing a full debut but he insisted he must deserve it.

"I've come here saying I need to get the minutes but I need to show I deserve them on the pitch," said the 20-year-old, who made his Walsall bow as a substitute in last Saturday's 0-0 draw at Stevenage. "I don't expect to walk in to the team and play. It's an opportunity and that's all I can ask for. Hopefully I can take it.

"What the gaffer (Tony Mowbray, Middlesbrough boss) said to me was that maybe it was too much too soon at Boro and I will never, ever, get ahead of myself.

"I'm a very modest lad and if I need to go and play in the reserves to show what I've got then I'll do that, no problem.

"I made my first-team debut at 16 so sometimes I forget how young I am really because I was playing in Scotland for Livingstone since I was a teenager.

"I played in Gordon Strachan's first 10 or 11 games when I first moved to Boro so it looked as if I was going to play.

"Under Mowbray it's not quite happened and I'm just trying to do as well as I can. If it means coming to Walsall and showing what I can do, then I'm happy."

And the Scot dismissed any fitness concerns after a persistent groin injury kept him on the sidelines at Boro before his first game of the season at Stevenage.

He said: "I've only been training for a couple of weeks. I've had a lot of problems but I've been training and haven't felt any ill- effects. I feel quite sharp, so hopefully a few minutes will bring me on."