Walsall's Tom Knowles on the comeback trail and in the mix

Knowles sustained an ankle injury during Walsall’s 2-0 defeat at Forest Green Rovers on March 9.

There were initial fears that his season could be in jeopardy, but the 25-year-old trained this week and is in contention for the weekend.

“Tom has got a chance. He trained today so we’ll have to see how he is. He’s on the comeback trail,” Sadler revealed.

Jackson Smith missed the midweek defeat at Doncaster Rovers due to illness and is still a doubt ahead of the game.

Sadler added: “Jackson still isn’t well at the moment so it’ll be touch and go with him.”

Jamille Matt has been nursing a “neural issue” which has forced him off at half-time in two of Walsall’s previous three games, and Sadler confirmed that he will continue to monitor the striker carefully.

“We’re still trying to nurse him through so we’ll see how he looks,” the Walsall boss confirmed.

“He hasn’t done much today so it’s just day by day. Clearly he’s such a big powerhouse for us that we want to utilise as much as we can but we also have to be mindful if he feels that he can’t give what he wants to give.”

Jack Earing has been sidelined with a hamstring injury for the past four games and Sadler was hopeful of welcoming him back ahead of schedule.

However, the midfielder is still fighting to be involved before the end of the season, but is expected to miss the next two games against Notts County and Swindon Town.

“Jack won’t be available this weekend. We tried to get him out on the grass on Monday and he wasn’t as far along the line as we hoped he would be,” he said.

“We’re going to try for Bradford but we’ll have to see.”

Lastly, Aramide Oteh has featured just twice from the bench since mid-October due to two separate hamstring injuries.

But the attacker has trained this week and is back in contention.

“Rem has trained this week and he’ll be chomping at the bit to be involved,” he concluded.