Walsall boss Dean Smith spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One clash against Carlisle at Brunton Park tomorrow afternoon, Smith now having given up on the Saddlers reaching the play-offs:
“We need snookers now to get in the play-offs and unfortunately it is the wrong sport. So, it is going to be tough and all we can concentrate on is the next game and that is Carlisle, and hopefully to try to get three points. They are in a relegation scrap at the moment so it is not going to be easy, they will be smarting from a 6-1 defeat at Preston, but they had a really good home result the week before against Swindon 1-0.
“So, it will be a tough game but is one where we want to finish as high as we can with as many points as we can get. We still think it has been a decent season, but we are very disappointed that we haven’t made it into that top six. We still go into every game believing that we can and trying to win. But, the play-offs is a big ask with teams above us as well and Peterborough only need a point or two to cement their place in there as well.
“So, it is going to be very tough but the approach is to go into each game and try to win some. We don’t want the season to fizzle out because we have shown so much potential throughout the season. We have played fantastically well at times and our performances throughout the season have been really consistent, unfortunately in the last couple of months the results haven’t matched the performances. Sometimes that happens and you have to take it on the chin.
“Goalscoring has certainly been a problem at home, we have not scored as many as we should have. We have created an awful lot of chances but we have not quite taken them, and that was summed up by the penalty miss last Saturday. I think we had 17 attempts on goal and 11 on target, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. We need to be more ruthless, more clinical and it is something that we need to work on to get better for the rest of the game this season and for next season.
“Whether personnel will change during the summer as well in terms of scoring goals or not we will have to wait and see. We want to get back to winning ways, we won a couple on the spin and then we followed it up with a couple of defeats, which we feel weren’t deserved so we need to put that record straight. With four games to go I will be picking football teams to win football matches. We want to end the season in a positive run of form and will be aiming to take maximum points from our remaining fixtures."
“You are always looking ahead, every day in football management you have to in terms of recruitment, looking at players, looking at the way forward and how we can improve all the time. So, that never really changes and although the play-offs are a long shot now it helps us to look ahead a little more.
“Contracts are an ongoing thing as well, usually the younger players you are looking at first who accept contracts, we look after younger players and we want to keep them here at the football club. With the older players there is not so much of a need to get their contracts sorted, but we feel we have got a decent squad here. It is one that we would like to keep together and give it a really good shot with a few additions next season.
“The Carlisle game will be a very tricky one, they need to win the game, they are in trouble, they had a poor start to the season and unfortunately Greg Abbott lost his job and Graham Kavanagh took over and he turned them round for a while. But, it has been tough, with the constraints there that Kav has got it has made it very tough and he has had to play the loan market. He has played it well at times, got Gary Madine back who scored last week so he is a threat, and at their place it is always a tough game. So, we have got to make sure we are at our best.
“We will have a big say on the relegation places this season because all four games we have left are against teams who could get dragged into it, Gillingham on Monday, if they don’t win on Friday they could get dragged into it, and Stevenage and Colchester are both down there as well. So, we will have a big say on what is happening down there and we need to concentrate on what we are doing.
“Our consistency of performance can't be questioned this season. We've improved on last year and now we want to finish higher than we did last season. I have every faith in my players' ability to achieve that as we go into the Easter weekend with two important games coming up. I thank those supporters who will be making the long trip up to Carlisle and hope that we will give you something to cheer about."