Dean Keates: Walsall forged siege mentality

The Saddlers, who currently sit two points above the drop zone in League One, will continue their battle to avoid relegation when they host Fleetwood at the Banks’s Stadium on Saturday.

Keates’ side enter the game having followed up their victory over Bradford by securing a valuable point at Burton.

Prior to that though, they had lost five matches on the spin. And Keates believes his players deserve credit for the way they ended that poor run.

“It had to be a siege mentality,” the boss said when asked how Walsall went about ending their winless streak.

“We spoke to the lads about it and told them they have to take the rough with the smooth.

“You have to be strong enough to deal with criticism because, in football, when things aren’t going well people will be quick to tell you.

“The lads took that on board. They closed ranks and made sure they stuck together. The players have shown great character. But they know there is still a long way to go.”

Keates admits he learnt a lot when Walsall were struggling for form.

“During that run I learnt a lot,” the boss continued.

“We know that some performances haven’t been good enough and results haven’t been good enough.

“You look at the Wimbledon game and we were farcical. It was nowhere near good enough.

“But even when we were on that run there were some OK performances.

“We weren’t getting the rub of the green or a break so to say.

“But confidence is massive football. So is momentum.

“If you are in a good place and you are winning games, it becomes easy to win games.

“When confidence is low, that losing habit becomes the same – it snowballs.

“We needed that Bradford game to stop that bad run and it gave us a platform to build on.

“We know we are not out of it. We’ve got a massive game at the weekend against Fleetwood.

“If we can add three points to what we’ve done already then it becomes decent form heading into the end-of-season run-in.

Looking back at Burton, Keates feels his team should have gone on to win the game with Josh Gordon and Matt Jarvis both close to netting a winner.

“We are delighted with the clean sheet but a little bit disappointed we didn’t go on to win the game with the chances we created in the second half,” the 40-year-old added.

“Their keeper has pulled off a great save from Josh and Jarvs was unlucky with the one that fell just the wrong side of the post.

“Looking back we were the team that looked the most capable of winning the game.”