United are are in the drop zone and have just one home game left after today to preserve their third tier status, road games at Peterborough, Crawley and Wolves, do not immediately appear to offer much, given the Blues away day woes and they have been decent at Brunton Park, since Christmas, beating three top 8 teams and taking a point from mighty Brentford . They have kept clean sheets in their last four home starts and get combative midfielder James Berrett ( 35-2-6) back from suspension today, but for them it is less about team news and more about their motivation to be playing League 1 football next season.

Walsall are a decent team, but one a little short in terms of budget and up against it this season, against some very well funded teams, that caught up with them eventually and they have won only two of their last 14 starts,collected just 11 points in the process, they earned 22 from their first 14 games and 23 from the next 14, so you can see that they have fallen well off the level they had shown through early and mid season. They still have a mathematical chance of promotion, but it is miniscule and results elsewhere are going to see that evaporate today in any case. They have not scored in 265 minutes and are not helped in that respect by the loss of top scorer Craig Westcarr (40-13-7) , who has stepped up to the plate after 20 + goal striker Will Grigg was sold to Brentford in the summer, Westcarr has contributed to 20 of their 45 goals (44%) and they have not won without him scoring or conceding in over three months, or on the road in over four. It is hard to see how they can match the intensity of the home side, senior player Matt Robson, spoke about the mood in the camp in midweek: "Friday is a must win game for us and the lads are all determined to do that. We had a positive day yesterday and everyone was lively in training. We'll carry that on during this week and make sure there's a really positive attitude around the squad. Hopefully that will mean we're on the front foot on Friday."