Walsall – Stand Up and be Counted!

By Neil Ravenscroft
April 10 2003

Stoke City's win last night set the nerve ends jangling, but how realistic is it that two if the teams below us could catch us before the finishing line is reached?

It has been a funny old season so far, but most Walsall fans will agree that the team should not be in the League position we find ourselves, with the talent we have at our disposal.

However, following Rotherham capitulating to Stoke last night, we do find ourselves perilously close to the bottom three. How realistic is the threat of relegation?

The obvious thing is to look at the remaining fixtures.

Sheffield Saddler, in 'another place' (UTS) has already pointed out that the teams below us have some difficult fixtures to come:-

"Stoke have 3 away matches against Millwall, Coventry and Palace, 2 home games against Wimbledon and Reading.
Grimsby have 2 away matches against Wednesday and Reading, 3 home matches against Palace, us and Brighton.
Brighton have 3 home matches against Preston, Wednesday and Watford, 2 away matches against Leicester and Grimsby.
Sheffield Wednesday are down unless a miracle happens!
So I reckon Stoke will get 7 points maximum giving them 48 points. Grimsby 7 points maximum giving them 44 points. Brighton 9 points maximum giving them 49 points.
We will get at least 7 points from last 6 games giving us 50 points!" (Thanks for that, Sheffield, do you want a job on the team?).

I tend to agree with his analysis here, in terms of the likely points haul for all four teams involved, especially taking into account the paucity of goals scored by Stoke and Grimsby.

However, it does mean that the team need to start performing themselves, the way they did in the second half against Portsmouth, as soon as possible, in order to get the six or seven points we need.

If we were to be relegated from this position, we would not only have no one to blame but ourselves, but would probably deserve it.