Walsall Head Coach Matt Taylor says competition is high within the squad as he prepares to take the team to Leyton Orient.
The Saddlers will be looking to build on last week’s dramatic late victory over Salford City and pick up their first away win of the campaign.
Taylor feels he has a tough task picking a team to start the game at the Breyer Group Stadium after a competitive week on the training field.
“It’s been another good week,” Taylor said.
“The players have trained well, trained hard. As you would imagine, there’s been a bit more energy and a buzz around the training ground but on the whole it’s been a really positive training week.
“The hardest part of this job is you can only pick 11 players and that’s not lip service to the players, that’s the truth.
“The ones that are in the team have got a harder job staying in the team because they’re being pushed by those that aren’t. We’ve got an extremely competitive squad so I’m very happy to have that issue and have that problem.
“The team is in a vein of form, looking at the last three results, that is OK and what we’ve got to do now is something we haven’t done all season and that’s win away from home and that won’t be easy.”
Saturday’s opponents Orient, managed by Kenny Jackett, are currently sixth in Sky Bet League Two.
Taylor insists his side will have a great opportunity of earning a positive result if the Saddlers are ruthless when they get opportunities but is fully aware of Orient’s threats.
“They’re a very capable team with an extremely experienced manager who has a clearly philosophy of how that football club is going to play,” he commented.
“They’ve played one or two varying systems but they don’t hugely change the personnel.
“I think they’re quite settled as a squad and they seem a very solid team so it’s going to be a really difficult game because they don’t concede a huge amount of goals, they’re a threat at restarts, they’re a threat at set plays, they’ve got some extremely talented players for this level of football and they’ll be backed by a very good crowd so we’ve got to go away from home and have the full focus on us and back ourselves to put a performance in.
“We know that in each game that we play we’ll create bucket loads of chances and if we take those chances, we’ve got the best opportunity of getting a positive result but if we don’t then it will be a difficult afternoon for us.”