Blog: The long wait could be over for Walsall
One long wait is over – well into the sixth month of the season and Walsall have finally got round to beating a team in the bottom half of the table.
Unfortunately, the long wait for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy second leg still goes on,
Tuesday night can't come round quickly enough, but I suspect that time will move very slowly indeed from 7.45 pm onwards next Tuesday.
The huge discrepancy between our recent home form and away form has been well-documented.
But one more pleasing aspect that has crept in is in the goals for column, 15 in the last 9 with only one blank.
Equally encouraging is the fact that over half of those notched have come from wide areas and midfield - players other than 'Super' Tom Bradshaw.
Both Anthony Forde and Michael Cain got beyond the strikers to score at Colchester last week, Bradshaw turning provider superbly for the latter.
Forde and Cain are starting to appear regularly on the score-sheet and, pleasingly, Michael will be a regular on the team-sheet until May.
That gives opposition managers a slightly bigger tactical headache than the 'stamp on Bradshaw' team-talk. So Sawyers-Cooke- Baxendale, it's over to you.
I've mentioned goals because I think we'll need them against Preston. Like anybody, I'd have taken the 2-0 lead if you'd offered it on the way up to Deepdale.
But - cliche alert - it's indeed a 'dangerous lead,' so we should treat the game as if 'it's still 0-0' and it really is 'only half-time.'
Make no mistake, Preston pose a serious threat and whichever way the game pans out we could be in for an extremely uncomfortable night.
With a full stadium, expectations will be through the roof - one way to finally get rid of those unsightly stanchions perhaps - but we must manage them properly.
Make noise, get behind the lads but be patient and be prepared for us to do it the hard way. This is Walsall after all.
Do it lads. For all of us, fans new and old, fans who've followed the club throughout all the lean times, for yourselves, for former greats who never got to take us there, for Albert McPherson and every other fallen Saddler, for the town, for our club, go on - do it.
