Walsall goalkeeper Owen Evans is expecting a close encounter against Mansfield Town and is keen to restart another lengthy unbeaten run.
The Saddlers will be looking to bounce back from their frustrating defeat to Stockport County when they take on the Stags tomorrow as they look to start 2023 on a positive note.
Evans is hoping for a better result than October’s meeting with Nigel Clough’s side and is keen to get back on track quickly.
“We’ve got to restart the run again,” Evans said.
“We’ve got to take positives out of every single game. We’ve got to look at that in the debrief, kick on again and start the run again.
“The table shows that we’re all close together. It’s been a big week in terms of playing teams close around us and it will be another close encounter and hopefully, we can come out on top this time.
“They’re a good side, their league position shows that. At their place it was a close encounter.
“We weren’t playing at our best, we were doing a run of form where we weren’t winning a lot so hopefully, we can play New Year’s Day with a better account for ourselves and a different result.”
Thursday’s game against Stockport was watched by the biggest crowd of the season so far at the Poundland Bescot Stadium, 6,455.
Evans has been delighted with the levels of support and he is hoping to give them a performance on New Year’s Day.
“Whenever we’re at home, we want to win and you want to make sure the fans go home happy, they’ve been brilliant,” Evans commented.
“We had a big crowd (On Thursday), especially behind the goal in the first half, they were non-stop singing so it’s always appreciated and hopefully we can put in a better performance for them on New Year’s Day.”
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Saddlers Head Coach Michael Flynn is also focused on tomorrow’s assignment and is aiming to quickly put the defeat to Stockport behind him.
“The beauty of it is we’ve got the opportunity to put it right and start 2023 with a positive result,” Flynn said.
“We end (2022) with a negative and we’ve got to push on and go again.
“We’ve got to dust ourselves down and like I said, I’m not going to over react just yet.”