We ought to be going into tomorrow’s game with newly relegated Scunthorpe with a measure of confidence. After all, they must be suffering from a little bit of a crisis themselves facing up to life in the third tier again and that seems to be born out by the fact that they lost their first home game of the season (albeit to Leeds) and also went out of the League Cup to early season pace setters Hartlepool United.

However, life isn’t always that simple and our own poor performance losing at home to Darlington on Tuesday night will not be helping the Saddlers’ cause any. Neither will the team news.

Rhys Weston should still be missing with his injury, but that will be partly countered by Roberts likely to have got over his calf strain and Paul Boertien, hopefully, being fit again.

In midfield, there is a chance that Dwayne Mattis, missed so badly so far, may return and Marco Reich will be pushing for a start as he starts to reach match fitness.

Up front, Mullen has real problems. Jabo Iberhe will start, but the big decision will be who replaces the suspended Michael Ricketts. Demontagnac, Deeney and Nicholls will all be in the running.

If Mattis is fit, he’ll find a couple of familiar faces on the other side, as Scunny have signed midfielder Sam Togwell permanently and goalkeeper Sam Slowcombe on loan from Barnsley this week. They will also be parading another new signing in Huddersfield defender David Mirfin, who joined for 150,000 earlier this week, but wasn’t eligible to play in the Cup tie.

Main dangerman is likely to be Jonathan Forte, who we have met before while on loan from Sheffield United at Doncaster and Rotherham.

Predictions?

No messing about allowed. With Scunthorpe having lost their first two games and having to come to terms with life in the lower reaches, anything less than a home win will be, quite frankly, unacceptable, if we have pretensions of the top half of the table this season.