Richard O'Donnell: Walsall are best against big clubs

He believes the Saddlers are at their best against the bigger clubs.

But O'Donnell admitted Walsall are no longer 'under the radar' with bigger clubs after handing a 3-0 beating to MK Dons recently.

"It probably did send a message out, we knew we were capable of it," said the 26-year-old former Chesterfield stopper.

"We beat Preston earlier this year 3-1 and people probably didn't see that coming. The big teams are the ones we tend to do well against."

Dean Smith's men travel to Deepdale for the first leg of the semi-final tomorrow night, and O'Donnell said: "It is a game we are looking forward to.

Important

"It will be a different one to the one we played here against them. For a start it is away from home, they have a few different players in there and two games are never the same.

"We know how good Preston are. They are a really good team, full of good players."

The keeper insisted it was important not to lose the first leg and leave themselves a lot to do.

"I can't remember playing in a two-legged game before," he added.

"They are rare these days, you are probably only looking at the play-offs and cup replays where you get these kind of ties.

"It would be nice to go there and get a couple of away goals, but we are going to go into the game as we would any other and try and win.

"We will play as we normally do. We are not looking to sit back, we will be looking to score goals and give ourselves the advantage."