Walsall v Mansfield Town: Saddlers seeking good run as they target a place in play-offs

The Saddlers are three points off the top seven, sitting 11th in the league, although they have played more games than most of the teams above them.

Inconsistency has been Walsall’s biggest enemy this year and they now welcome a team that has found form, winning their last five League Two games.

In manager Darrell Clarke’s first season in charge Walsall played some of their best football in the New Year and Dutton believes they can replicate that to mount a charge for promotion.

“We’re not happy with where we are at the moment, we think we’re eight or nine points short of where we should be,” Dutton said.

“Look at the expected goals table in our league, Walsall are right up there at the top.

“If we’d been a little bit more ruthless and scored when we were on top, we’d be seven, eight or nine points better off.

“These are all positives. We can get the boys on the training field, work on these things, add those aspects to our game and finish the season strong.

“A Darrell Clarke team historically always finishes the season strong so hopefully this will be the same for Walsall this season.

“We felt it was last season, we just started to feel we got a bit of cohesion and momentum and we were ready to finish the season strong.”

Walsall finally got their first win in six games on Saturday, beating Port Vale 3-1.

Their games this season have often seen tight scorelines and Dutton insists ‘belief’ is essential for them to start putting teams away.

“There hasn’t been too many games this season where we’ve won by two goals, that’s something we have to bring to the table,” Dutton added.

“It’s almost like we go a goal ahead and we apologise for it. We let teams back in and we’re too good of a team to do that.

“We have fantastic players and individuals who just have to get that belief to start putting teams to the sword.

“They did that (against Port Vale) so it’s another building block in the right direction.

“We have two or three weeks of Saturday to Saturday fixtures which allows us to get the boys on the training field and get some good quality work into them.

“We’re looking forward to it.”

Elijah Adebayo has been in fine form of late, netting twice against Vale, despite well-documented interest in him from Scottish club Hearts.

With that transfer saga seemingly put on ice the forward must focus on the task in hand tomorrow.

“Elijah has in his game now that he’ll make runs in behind willingly,” Dutton said.

“A lot of players when they start off, especially coming from academy set-ups, the first thought is to come to feet to get the ball.

“Now you see with Elijah that he’s quite willing to run in behind and he profited from that with his goal (against Port Vale). Credit to him.

“Elijah is a player we brought in and saw the potential in him.

“He’s developed and is now fulfilling what we all thought he could be. He’s going to attract interest from clubs higher up the pyramid. Credit to him for his work rate and effort.

“He has to get his head down. He’s a Walsall player and is happy to be here.

“Until something happens he will be and we’re all happy with that.”

Jack Rose, James Clarke and Danny Guthrie have all been injured in recent weeks, missing the last three games.

Manager Clarke is coy with injury details and Rose and Clarke could return tomorrow.

Guthrie, however, is expected to be sidelined for some time with an unspecified issue. If Rose returns he could go straight back into the team after goalkeeper Liam Roberts made an error on Saturday, allowing Vale to score their solitary goal.