Sam Mantom: Walsall can still target the play-offs
Midfielder Sam Mantom insists Walsall are still confident of repeating last season's play-off challenge despite the club's triple transfer shock.
The Saddlers will play the first game of their pre-season tour to Trinidad & Tobago today when they face a Tobago XI in the relative cool of the evening.
But it will hot up soon enough for the Saddlers as manager Dean Smith gets to grips with replacing strike trio Febian Brandy, Will Grigg and Jamie Paterson, who all left before the trip began.
Mantom is starting the season as a Walsall player for the first time and said: "The aim is to start where I finished off, get my place back in the team, get off to a winning start and put myself in the middle of the pitch where I can really stamp my authority on the game. At the end of last season we spoke about it – we want to try to get to ninth again but there is no reason we can't get higher and into the play-offs.
"We are certainly not looking at relegation now and we are looking up more than down. If we can really have a good start we can take points off the best sides in this league."
Smith's team sheet for tonight's game is likely to reveal the names of three trialists he has taken on tou.
But he has denied rumours that out-of-contract Lee Croft and former Villa and England striker Darius Vassell were among them.