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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A majestic performance by the Super Saddlers in Cumbria last night on a night where three goals were hit without reply. Wednesbury Saddler was there and posted the following summary on the message board:

Managed to get to match last night and I’m so glad I did. Right from the off we looked up for this one and in our first attack won a pen. I didn’t exactly know it was a pen straight away but well take it!

Went off the boil after 20 mins and let them into game although they never really hurt us
was thinking we could hold them and win 1-0

2nd half my god

we attacked with pace down both wings Fabian was outstanding with his pure pace and the ball was stuck to his foot
every time we lost the ball we just closed them down and won it back and we seem to have 3 up every time we broke played the ball mainly on the ground and basically passed them to death.
grigg deserved his 3 goals but was a team performance and the best away i’ve seen for a while.

the walsall fans were excellent singing all evening and walsall players acknowledged that
grigg came over to us straight after match with match ball up his jumper and really clapped us and then the team came over and you could generally see they were grateful for the effort from us as much as we were from them.

dare we dream that we could sneak that 6th spot? would need to realistically win 7/8 out from next 11 but after last night i don’t see why we cant give it a go now were safe from the drop

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BBC Cumbria would like to speak to a Walsall fan on the phone ahead of tonight’s game with Carlisle. If interested and immediately available please email editor@upthesaddlers.com

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A point in London yesterday – doing little favours for both teams’ playoff aspirations. TheGilbertAlsop reflected via the message board:

A deserved draw today. We were overran at times in the first half but got more into it in the second half and created a lot more chances.
Trotta for Brentford was superb and caused Butler all sorts of problems. George, making his debut, coped well and cleared one shot off the line.
McCarey made some decent saves, although they were saves you should expect him to make. Taylor, who was a bit flustered in the first half, poked a clearance against our bar. Grigg was completely isolated as our midfield never got a look in.

Second half we were a lot better. Brandy, Paterson and Baxendale came into the game more and finally got the ball up to Grigg. Struggling to think of a decent chance we created, although we had lot more possession. A bit more intelligent use of the ball could have seen us with a lot more clear cut chances. Most of our shots came from Taylor, bombing forward from left-back. Westcarr did well when he came on and provided a bit more muscle. We got to grips with Trotta in the second half and they didn’t trouble us as much. Fetherstone almost snatched it at the end but blasted over, when he was off balance.

MOTM has to go to McCarey, although he almost blew it in the 94th minute trying to come for a cross through a crowd of players.

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A I said in the Trust Walsall Advertiser column this week, we are in a very unusual position this weekend, for us. We may be used, in recent seasons, to relegation six pointers, but tomorrow, we have a promotion six pointer.

Realistically, of course, that long stretch without a win in October and November has left us too far behind the top six to have a really decent chance of making the play offs, but, it has to be said, several of the teams above us have shown a case of the severe wobbles in recent weeks, one of them, the Franchise, to the extent that they are now below us in the table. We go tomorrow, therefore, to Brentford, a team just above us in the table, and a win would leave us just three points behind them. Of the others, Doncaster, Yeovil, Bournemouth and Sheffield United are all playing each other. Interesting, isn’t it?

Dean Smith has got Aaron McCarey back on loan to replace the recalled Rectangle, but is also making encouraging noises about Grof. I think McCarey will get the nod, however. His other problem is right back, where Purkiss will be back, which is a good job, as both players who can cover, Chambers (J) and Taundry, are injured. Purkiss’s return is also welcome for another reason. Board member Bernie pointed out this week that our record is: With Purkiss this season: P26 W14 D4 L8 Pts per game 1.77 – comfortable play-off form. Without Purkiss this season: P12 W0 D7* L5 Points per game 0.58 – relegation certs.

Brentford have been spending the cash on loans to bolster their seemingly flagging play off hopes and could hand debuts to their new signings, defender Liam Moore and striker Bradley Wright-Phillips.

Jake Reeves (concussion) should be fit, but Farid El Alagui (knee) and Kevin O’Connor (ankle) are still out.

Predictions?

A tough one for the Saddlers, even if the Bees’ form has been a little hit and miss of late. They didn’t get a good tanking off Chelski in the Cup either, which might have demoralised them a little. However, Bournemouth in their long unbeaten run and Doncaster away weren’t easy, either. We are quite capable of taking the points tomorrow, even with their reinforcements. It may just hinge on how well we can cope with the new partnership of Wright Phillips and Donaldson.

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