Team News From The Walsall Camp

Last updated : 19 November 2010 By Thetashkentterror

Oliver Lancashire
Saddlers centre-half Oliver Lancashire spoke to his club's official website ahead of Walsall's League One match against Carlisle at the Banks's Stadium tomorrow, Lancashire looking to build on the Saddlers beating Fleetwood 2-0 at home in an FA Cup first round replay on Tuesday :


"Carlisle have done well. When I was at Southampton we played them in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final and they were a pretty good team and this year they've done quite well, but after Tuesday's win in the Cup, we'll look for one in the League.

"I think in this League if you can get a run of good wins together then you can start pushing up the table quickly and Carlisle are a similar team to us, with a similar budget I'd expect, and it's good to look at teams like that who are doing well.

"We go into the game with confidence. We had to work hard to overcome Fleetwood, Jimmy Walker pulled off a lot of great saves and kept us in the game. You only have to look at the likes of Huddersfield and Brighton who were also pushed hard by non-League opponents.

" We won the game though which is what we need on this kind of run, so we can go into Saturday with a bit of confidence. It was nice to keep a clean sheet and we'll see what happens on Saturday. Manny (Smith) and I had four games together at the start of the season and we played pretty well. We're all pretty comfortable and we train together so it's good. "

 



In team news for the Saddlers tomorrow they have three players who will be a last minute decision on whether they are available to play or not. The previously injured trio, who only returned to training on Thursday of this week, being experienced striker Jon Macken (calf), Barnsley-loanee winger Martin Devaney (hamstring) and former Manchester City centre-half Clayton McDonald (hamstring).

Definitely out of action though is veteran frontman, and Saddlers skipper, Darren Byfield who is set to be sidelined for another six weeks after a recent scan revealed further damage to his knee - including his anterior cruciate ligament, Byfield already having been laid low by the injury since mid-September.

Another player missing for Walsall being Manchester City-loanee left-back Ryan McGivern, who is at at the Banks's Stadium for the whole of this season. McGivern serving out the final game of a three match ban after he picked up a red card in an FA Cup first round match at Fleetwood for a bad tackle on the Cod Army's Ian Craney.

On the plus side of things for Saddlers manager Chris Hutchings though, former Huddersfield centre-back Andy Butler is available for selection after he was unable to play in Tuesday's 2-0 FA Cup replay win over Fleetwood. Butler having been signed as a free agent after the original tie at Highbury. Then finally 19-year old striker Will Grigg is also back in matchday contention after missing Walsall's midweek game as he was in action for Northern Ireland under-21s in their 3-1 defeat away to Scotland.

 

 

The referee for tomorrow afternoon's match is Brendan Malone from Salisbury in Wiltshire, and he will be assisted down the lines by Army FA official Lance Corporal Rob Ellis who is based in the West Midlands and Neil Radford from Worcester. Meanwhile the fourth official is Richard Wigglesworth from Doncaster.