"Make his job hard" - Harrison Burke makes Walsall selection point

Walsall defender Harrison Burke says the task of him and his teammates it to make Lee Grant’s job of selecting the team as “hard as possible”.

The 23-year-old has made three of his four league appearances from the bench, but has also started in both Carabao Cup fixtures this term.

His performances have helped contribute to a back-line, which has kept five clean sheets across all competitions, and conceded just four times in seven games.

“Make his job hard” - Burke on Walsall’s competition for places

“Just accepting that some games you’re not going to start and you have to be ready when you’re coming on,” Burke explained.

“I always refer to it as getting on a treadmill at full speed. If you’re as ready to get up to speed in the game then you can make an impact.

“Because you’re only given a short space of time and you’ve got to make sure that you leave your mark. You also want to give the gaffer a bit of a headache.

“You don’t want to make his job easy basically, you want to make his job hard when selecting the team.”

Burke joined the Saddlers from Chester City in the summer of 2025, but saw his debut campaign in the EFL disrupted by a long-term knee injury.

He still made 24 appearances in all competitions, scoring twice, and got off the mark on the goal scoring front this season during a 3-2 home victory over Accrington Stanley on August 29.

Optimism is building under Grant following an unbeaten start in League Two, which has generated two wins and three draws.

Walsall have collected a pair of draws from their away trips at Crewe Alexandra and Exeter City and return to Bescot for the next two matches against Rochdale and local rivals Port Vale.

“Intensity” - Burke on biggest difference under Grant

On the biggest difference from last season, Burke added: “It’s really hard to say because last year we got off to a really good start and we hope to do the same again this year.

“The training this year has been more intense and that’s not me saying that I think it wasn’t intense last year because it was.

“But this year, it has been stepped up another level. The gaffer has come down from the likes of some really big teams where the standards are so high that you want to meet those standards and come up to what he’s expecting.

“It’s just a trade off where he’s expecting League One or Championship standards and we’re like: ‘Let’s do it because that’s where we want to be’.

“That’s probably the biggest differences. The demand that’s on us and the standards of the staff. They’re not dropping them and that’s a real challenge, but if we can use that then it’ll be massive for us.”