Walsall vs Salford preview: A new ground for the Saddlers to discover

The Saddlers made the perfect start to 2020 with only their third home win in League Two this season as they hung on to a 1-0 lead over Leyton Orient.

It was the ideal tonic to the disappointing 2-1 loss to Carlisle United on December 29 and Clarke’s side now have the opportunity to build on recent away performances.

“They (Salford) have a talented manager with a big budget and a big squad of players,” said the boss.

“It’s another team that I expect to finish in the top half and be competing to try and get in the play-offs.

“It’ll be nice to visit a ground that I’ve never been to.

“Going on statistics and the way we’ve performed at home, a lot of the time it’s not finishing our chances.

“We’ve given some sloppy individual mistakes away, but for me it’s been finishing our opportunities when they’ve come along.

“That’s why we’re disappointed with our home return.

“I keep saying to the players, reset.

“The New Year gives us a bit of a reset too.

“We’ve won our first home game of 2020, can we win more?

“Our away form is top seven, the home form is probably bottom six.

“We want to be on the front foot and playing front-foot football.

“We want to get our fans off their seat and we need to keep working away.”

Walsall could potentially have an injury crisis on their hands for the trip to Salford tomorrow with several players suffering setbacks.

Although Clarke hasn’t given updates on his injured players, doubt has been cast on the fitness of some of his first-team regulars.

Stuart Sinclair has missed the last two games, while striker Elijah Adebayo limped off against Carlisle and missed the Leyton Orient fixture.

Rory Gaffney will be unavailable against his parent club, having joined on loan from Salford, while Cameron Pring will serve a one-match ban for two yellow cards against Orient.

Shay Facey and Danny Guthrie both came off injured in the last game, while captain James Clarke will be available again after serving a suspension.

“It’s a squad game,” Clarke added.

“We’ll bring the squad together, there’s no excuses from me.

“Players will have to step up to the plate.

“We have a fantastic strength and conditioning coach in Mark Bradley.

“We’re doing a lot of work for the lads that aren’t playing the minutes so they should be up to scratch.”

Opposition look

Salford City boss Graham Alexander is looking for a response from his side when they welcome the Saddlers to the Peninsula Stadium.

The Ammies were undefeated in three matches over the Christmas period, topping it off with a 4-1 thrashing of Oldham on December 29.

But the Manchester club started the New Year in the worst possible way by losing 1-0 away to Grimsby and Alexander wants his side to rectify that slip-up against Walsall tomorrow.

“After some really good strides in the last few games, it’s a step back in the wrong direction,” he said.

“We need to make sure that on Saturday we go forward again.

“That’s what the Christmas period and the New Year period is, it’s game after game.

“You’ve got no time to dwell or live off a victory.

“There’s no time to feel sorry for yourself in defeat so we have to get ready for the next one.

“We have to commit as much energy and aggression into the game to go with our quality and get ourselves a good result.

“You have to be 100 per cent and go as long as you can and as hard as you can. If you tire, we make a change, but you can’t hold anything back.

“We know the levels we can get to and the players have shown that in the last couple of months.

“We have to correct what went wrong and make sure it’s on show on Saturday.”

The Ammies’ new signing could make an immediate impact against Walsall after joining the club yesterday.

Striker Ashley Hunter joined from League One Fleetwood until the end of the season.