The odds are getting longer on the play-off dream after another blank against Yeovil yesterday following up on the previous goalless draw against Hartlepool. TheGilbertAlsop offered his views on the message board:

The whole team defended superbly well today with the two centre-halves being the pick of the bunch. Johnstone hardly touched the ball at all and we restricted them to a couple of long range efforts from their big centre-half.
The first half was pretty equal I thought. Brandy going the closest with a long-range effort the keeper could only parry away. Although they had good spells of possession (their right-back appeared to be everywhere) they couldn’t do anything with it.
As soon as the second-half started we got Brandy more into the game and were all over them as we had wave after wave of attacks in the first ten minutes but came away with nothing to show for it and no real chances created.
Grigg came the closest just before he was substituted, at last forcing their keeper into a save from a run of successive corners. Hemmings came on for Grigg and Brandy played up top, with Hemmings on the left and Paterson on the right. We still couldn’t create a decent chance though and the game huffed and puffed to its inevitable goalless conclusion.
Although we were the slightly better team I think a draw was the best result.
Sawyers had a few minutes at the end and won a couple of headed flick-ons but you can’t really judge him on that alone.
Man of the match is anyone from Butler, Downing, James or Adam Chambers. I will plump for Downing who looked in control throughout and also kept possession well.

There were also two farcical moments when we went down to ten men. Brandy came off for five minutes in the first half as he appeared to have lost a shin pad or something like that and disappeared down the tunnel then got called back and after much faffing around on the bench eventually came back on.
Then with a couple of minutes left, Hemmings came off as I think he took a whack in the face. Baxendale was ready to come on, the paperwork handed in, then all of a sudden Hemmings rose from the dead (appropriately, for this time of year) then sprinted back on, leaving Baxendale jilted at the altar. Can anyone clear up what actually happened in both these cases?

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Well, fixtures don’t come much bigger than the two we have coming up over the Easter weekend. First of all comes Yeovil Town, one of the teams we are trying to catch and who have been wobbling a little of late. Win there on Good Friday and Monday’s game against Coventry, promotion rivals until their ten point deduction just today becomes even more important. You can assume that Sheffield United’s three games in hand make them uncatchable, but Yeovil and Tranmere certainly are, with the Merseysiders having two tough fixtures, away at leaders Doncaster and then away at Portsmouth on Monday, a side who have beaten Coventry at home and drawn at Doncaster in their last two fixtures. The Fat Lady may be clearing her throat, but she hasn’t started singing yet.

That makes the Yeovil game a must-not-lose, if not a must win and the Coventry game a certain must win. Hopefully they will be demoralised by the points deduction, especially as they have absolutely nothing left to pay for this season.

Dean Smith will have a fully fit squad to choose from, other than the doubts surrounding leading scorer Will Grigg and has even added to his options. Grigg hasn’t trained all week, following the hamstring problem he picked up on International duty with Nothern Ireland and the club have been making noises that he might only make the Coventry game. We shall see.

The addition comes in the shape of Bag Lady attacking midfielder, Romaine Sawyers. The Albion official site describes Sawyers as “Excellent technically, very intelligent and tactically bright. He is also a good creator and is a good No.10 who can play off the centre-forward in space”. His International record for St Kitts and Nevis, 4 goals in 3 games for the under 23s and 1 in three for the full team, suggests that he does have something about him.

Glovers manager Gary Johnson has also been busy. Their new loan signing, Angelo Balanta, is set to be involved after joining from QPR until the end of the season.

The 22-year-old, who can play on the left wing or up front, is no stranger to League One having spent three spells with MK Dons, the most recent coming at the start of the current campaign.

His arrival comes after two on-loan attackers returned to their parent clubs for treatment. Former Saddlers loanee Jordan Cook is back with Charlton so they can assess a knee injury, while fellow forward Wes Fletcher has returned to Burnley having sustained a knock.

Johnson also extended the loan of Fulham defender Dan Burn until the end of the campaign and secured the return of Middlesbrough midfielder Matty Dolan for the same period of time

Predictions?

We have to win both games. Do that and the dream will still be alive. It is within our compass.

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Very, very cold. A game which if it had been boxing Walsall would have won on points. But a draw was the result – leaving the Saddlers still slightly adrift of the play-off picture. TheGilbertAlsop offered these thoughts via the message board:

A disappointing day.

I can take losing or drawing but to approach this game the way we did has left me more disappointed. Why did Featherstone play? I like him but he is not a creative player. We should have played Baxendale instead and played more positively.

When Featherstone came off we looked a lot better. Hemmings had an impact straight away and had our best chance of the game as we dominated the last 30 minutes. It also got Brandy more into the game. Loads of half-chances were created and on a better day and with Grigg in the team we would have taken those.

Johnstone had a decent debut making a fine save in the first half as Hartlepool coped with the windy conditions better and twice narrowly missed scoring. His distribution could be better but it was very windy so I can let him off with that.

We scrapped and fought throughout an awful game. We needed some quality and only got that towards the end when Hemmings came on. As well as Hemmings’ miss, Bowerman, Paterson, Mantom and Brandy all squandered decent chances as we panicked in front of goal.

Roll on Yeovil.

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The news that Will Grigg is out of the Northern Ireland game against Russia tonight with a hamstring problem has been casting a shadow over the Saddlers’ prospects for the rest of the season and making that play off spot – chances that had been improved following Swindon’s win at Yeovil on Tuesday. That means, realistically, we have to look at catching any two out of the wobbling Yeovil and Tranmere, plus Bournemouth, who may have broken out of their bad patch, whilst holding off Coventry (who may yet get a ten point deduction) and the dark horses, Orient. However, the news this afternoon that Flo Cuvelier has been told that he can go back out on loan may tempt Dean Smith to make another move for the talented Belgian. We shall see.

Smith’s major concern for tomorrow, however, will be how to replace the red hot Grigg. Bowerman doesn’t seem particularly suited to the lone striker rolw, so the most likely switch may be Westcarr up front with Baxendale coming into his role.

Meanwhile, last month’s Manager of the Month, John Hughes, will be hoping that the curse doesn’t strike his relegation threatened side, as they do have injury and illness worries.

Several members of the Pools squad were unable to train yesterday due to a sickness bug.

James Poole is ruled out of the game after being forced off in Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat at Oldham after taking a kick to his left leg. Ritchie Humphreys provides slightly brighter fitness news having returned to training yesterday after missing the Oldham trip with a calf problem. However, the veteran club captain still has question marks over his involvement, as do a lot of players when it comes to their Pools futures.

Predictions?

Hartlepool have suddenly found life a lot harder after their good run and I think we wont’t do them any favours tomorrow, either.

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2 nil down in the 90th minute but this Walsall side do not know when they are beaten. Today at Bescot the 5003 attending witnessed incredible scenes as first Jamie Paterson’s scored with a deflected shot, and then, in the second minute of injury time, top scorer Will Grigg smacked home the equaliser from Andy Taylor’s cross. BoringTeacher was there and has already posted this on the message board:

Like Swindon showed last week, this team definitely has sizeable gonads.

Crawley did what I expected Tranmere, another big physical team with a good tactical manager, to do – they shut down Brandy who was faced by three defenders every time he got the ball. Unlike Tranmere, however, they had an excellent cutting edge on the break scoring one screamer and one after an excellent save by our irish dingle. The main problems to me today were that Westcarr was mediocre (making little use of the available space) and most critically Chambers had an off-day in central midfield rather than the stormer he’s normally had for the past few months.

I’m thankful for the point because I don’t think we can make any slipups if we are to get the unlikely playoff spot. We deserved it – Patterson’s shot against the post seemed that it had to go in and if we’d equalised I’m certain we’d have gone on to win. I said to the bloke next to me that we had to score now just as Patterson got the first. The second goal felt significant.

Now boys, kick on – 4 points is the minimum acceptable return from the next two away games if we are going to make it to the north London industrial park, UTS.

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I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever considered doing their Phd thesis on whether there has been a swing in the balance of power in football towards the Home Counties, with the growth in the North/South divide. If you look at the Conference, granted Luton are down there, but that was following some gross financial mismanagement. Amongst the rest, however, are former League clubs such as Wrexham, Newport, Mansfield, Grimsby, Stockport, Southport, Gateshead and Lincoln, all with long pedigrees and, even lower down, Chester, Halifax and Bradford Park Avenue. In their places we have gained the likes of Dagenham and Redbridge, AFC Wimbledon, Wycombe and tomorrow’s opponents, Crawley. The centre of gravity does seem to have changed.

The Saddlers go into this one suffering from severe nose bleeds, having put former League leaders Tranmere away very easily on Tuesday night and are now just four points outside of the play offs and with two (maybe three) of the remaining teams above them, suffering from the wobbles (Tranmere and Bournemouth for sure, and Swindon probably). The team’s incredible run of form mean that the dream of sneaking into the play offs is still very much on.

Dean Smith will have a fully fit squad to choose from, it would seem, so his only choice will be whether to go in for a spot of squad rotation, or carry on with a winning side. Purkiss, Featherstone and Baxendale are the ones most unfortunate to be sitting out at the moment, but the form and fitness of his first choice eleven does make changing things problematical.

Crawley will still without skipper Josh Simpson. The midfielder has yet to recover from the ankle injury he suffered shortly after scoring Town’s goal in the 1-1 draw against Doncaster last month.

Defender Kyle McFadzean will also miss out again as he continues to build up his fitness following a virus which struck him down in November.

Manager Richie Barker has no new injury worries, however, and was able to welcome back top scorer Billy Clarke (hamstring) in the 2-2 draw at Yeovil in midweek. Clarke should start again alongside new signing Paul Hayes, who made his debut at Huish Park.

Midfielder Nicky Adams could return to the starting line-up after dropping to the bench on Tuesday.

Predictions?

Not the time for faint hearts. The impossible is still on and, for that, we need three points tomorrow. Crawley are five points behind us with an away record of Won 8, Drawn 3 and Lost 7. I have to go for a home win.

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The dream is getting closer as Walsall’s incredible resurgence continued last night at Bescot with an impressive 2-0 win over high-flying Tranmere.

Saddler Nic said on the message board that it was a victory for sexy football over long ball lumping:

Another great team performance. First twenty mins or so we struggled a bit with their long ball game. As soon as we figured this out we always looked the stronger team. Again our defence protected the goalkeeper superbly, most notable was the last ditch tackle by J Chambers in the first half. Credit must also go to the six played in front of the back four who chased everything down and battled for each other. It’s refreshing to see that all the players get on.

On the Westcarr debate, for me he was outstanding. Yes he gave the ball away a few times and didn’t win many headers, but his link up play is tremendous, and is vital to us for bringing our match winners into play. He played the ball of the match across the six yard box near the end. If someone would have the presence, or legs to get on the end of it, it would have been one of the best team goals seen here for years.

Also a note on Tranmere, they were up there with the worst teams I’ve seen down here all season. Aimless long balls played to two big lumps up front. It’s great to see us beating teams like this playing “sexy football”

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Another massive point for the Saddlers in a game by all accounts where we more than matched the big spending, Canio-less Robins. Saddler Nic was there and liked what he saw:

It shows how far we’ve come to feel a bit disappointed coming away from third in the league with a point. A combination of better luck at our end and better decision making/finishing at theirs would have led to us bringing three points back.

Although they put us under pressure in the second half, we didn’t look like conceding. I can’t remember them creating a single chance. Not once did they thread a ball through in behind, and we always looked likely to win the aerial contest which we did. On the whole though, it was a fantastic away performance and we can be proud of every single player wearing the shirt today.

Special mention for Butler, Downing, both of whom were excellent, Adam Chambers who hardly put a foot wrong, and Westcarr, who was our best player in the first half. Peach of a ball in from Hemmings for the goal, lets hope he can really push on now. Well done to everyone today, players were brilliant, as we’re the fans. We put blue coat to shame!!

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Another assured performance from the super Saddlers yesterday saw the Shrews shredded and move us closer to the play-off places, continuing our great run of form. WFC Rob was at the game and took to the message board to enthuse:

We’re genuine playoff and promotion contenders because of performances like that. Frankly, we were streets ahead of Shrewsbury in every single department and they had very little to cause us too many problems.

Unlike previous weeks, I thought we struggled to get Paterson and Brandy too involved – particularly inhe first half. That was probably as much down to the pitch as it was down to them playing Parry and Richards as their wide midfielders – two players with not a lot of pace, but with the nouse to be able to drop in and defend whenever we looked to break forward. When Paterson started floating more in the second half, he saw more of the ball and generally used it well.

When our wingers aren’t firing though, the we don’t half have an effective spine to our team. Grigg is absoltely on fire at the moment and helps us to defend from the front by working so hard, but in behind him, Chambers and Mantom are exceptional at winning the ball when we don’t have it and keeping it when we do. Westcarr provides the link between the midfield and Grigg and was excellent in that role again today.

We didn’t look too comfortable when they did get Richards in enough space for him to cross the ball into our box – an understandable reaction really, as they had two giants up front and clearly that was always going to be their route into today’s game. In terms of football, it was ours that was the easier on the eye and the more effective though.

The pleasing thing about today’s game was the way we played with a fire in our belly – just like we did at their place back in October. My only slight gripe is that having battered them for an hour, we started to take one too many touches, get a bit too cocky on the ball and give them some hope for the last ten minutes. That’s the only time I’ve seen us do that this season though, so happy to give the players the benefit of the doubt.

Another game where it was really good fun to be a Walsall fan. I’d have given a limb to be where we are now a year ago.

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