Following Saturday’s disappointing result against Northampton Town, this week’s other home game, against Brighton and Hove Albion tomorrow night, takes on a whole new significance. Whilst a failure to get three points wouldn’t be a disaster, as far as promotion hopes are concerned, it would put the club very much on the back foot with some difficult away fixtures to come. Of course, you could argue that wins or draws in those away games would have double the impact, but you cannot afford to have that sort of pressure put on your away form by poor results at home. That play off spot is surely too tantalisingly close to throw away now, even if it is far more than most of us expected at the beginning of the season.

Richard Money does have some worries ahead of the game, however. It was a weak central midfield performance that was at the heart of Saturday’s defeat and he will be hoping (and there have been times I never thought I would be typing this) that Edrissa Sonko is available for the game. He has, however, been looking better and better lately and Wrack and Bradley (especially) were both out of form against Northampton. N’Dour’s presence might well be welcome as well, as the lack of creativity in the centre of the park was thrown into stark relief when Holmes was getting so little change out of his full back. It seems we have come to depend a lot on the little left winger.

One man unlikely to be playing in midfield, however, is Michael Dobson, as he might well be covering for Weston, who limped off on Saturday. Dobson’s performance at full back was one of the big positives from that game, including as it did one crunching tackle to prevent a break, when he was one on one with the forward.

There is also the chance that Money might bring someone in on loan in defence, but he’s left himself with a massive problem there. The departure of Dann and some decent performances since mean that the central pair are quite settled and it’s extremely unlikely that any loan player will want to come and sit on the bench. Problems, problems.

It’s still too early to expect any team news from the Brighton camp, but they did line up as follows at Carlisle:-

Kuipers, Whing, El-Abd, Elphick, Richards, Thomson, Fraser, Westlake, Martot, Forster, Murray.
Subs: Sullivan, Lynch, Robinson, Loft, Hart.

The ever dangerous Forster is, of course, the man to watch.

Predictions?

Brighton go into this one in 12th place, but just 6 points behind the Saddlers. It’s their away record that’s the weaker part of their record, as they have lost half of their games on the road. They do not, however, concede many goals. I think that we do have enough to win this one, but we cannot afford any more slip ups.

Disappointment all round Bescot on Saturday after the Cobblers rode into town and took the three points courtesy of two goals from Akinfenwa, causing a setback to the Saddlers play-off chances and making automatic promotion almost impossible. Pedagogue gave his thoughts on the game on the message board:

When Millwall released Akinfenwa, in January, I said that we could worse than sign him on a short-term contract to do the same sort of job that a less-talented Trevor Benjamin did so effectively for us, last season. This suggestion was scoffed at by a number of posters on here but I wonder what they think now? He has played against us several times, over the last few seasons, for Torquay, Swansea, Millwall and now Northampton. Each time, we have failed to contain him and Roper must dread the sight of him! He looks as if he will score more (6 in 5 games, now, for the Cobblers) than Stefan Moore, although the latter still needs some more games before final judgement is passed.

Today was just typical Walsall - build up our hopes with two excellent away wins, attract an above-average crowd and turn in a load of excrement like that. I can’t see too many of today’s first-time fans being attracted back by that sort of performance. Gerrard deserved his MotM award and Weston and Boertien were o.k. Ince at fault with the first goal, caught in no-man’s land, and guilty of wasting possession with two stupid long kicks, with the following wind, straight to their ‘keeper. Roper never really dominated his Nemesis, Akinfenwa. Midfield was outfought, outclassed and outplayed - a rare off-day for Bradley but it also showed up Wrack’s shortcomings. Holmes showed his class, at times, but Betsy and Moore did nothing while Mooney had an absolute ‘mare, missing six chances. However, to his credit, he at least kept trying to score. I am struggling to recall any other Walsall player troubling their ‘keeper.

I am afraid that, today, the Money-Mullen duo was out-thought, tactically. Northampton have clearly learned a lot more about us than we have about them, in our 3 previous meetings.