'Fallen off a cliff' - but can Walsall still go up?

Mat Sadler signed a new long-term contract to stay as Walsall boss in January

"At the start of the season we'd have taken it - finishing fourth - but we all know that's not the situation."

Walsall boss Mat Sadler was not trying to kid anyone as he, along with thousands of the club's shocked fans, tried to process what they had just experienced.

A season that seemed certain to end wrapped in a League Two winners' bow had finally completely unravelled, burying their automatic promotion hopes.

Walsall were 12 points clear at the start of 2025, amid a whopping 119 days spent at the top of the table, only to suffer a catastrophic collapse that meant their final-day win at Crewe was not enough.

At full-time at the Mornflake Stadium, they were up - only for an added-time Bradford winner to snatch third place from their grasp.

Promotion is still possible but it must now come through the tombola of the play-offs, where agony can come out of the barrel as easily as ecstasy.

Football statisticians Opta rate Walsall's chances of getting to Wembley as the lowest of all four contenders.

BBC Sport takes a look at how the Saddlers slumped and whether they can pick themselves up for more more push.

Super soaraway Saddlers

Six wins, three defeats and one draw from their first 10 games of the campaign had the Saddlers on top of a four-way share of the early lead in League Two.

That momentum stayed with them as, during the winter months, they powered clear of the field off the back of a club-record nine successive wins.

After beating MK Dons 4-2 on 18 January, Walsall were 12 points clear of second-placed Crewe, with a whopping 15-point cushion to the play-off places.

Fears over the impact of losing 18-goal top-scorer Nathan Lowe back to parent club Stoke City were seemingly eased by the comfort of four different goalscorers against MK.

Added to that, Sadler signed a new "long-term" contract just a week before.

Everything looked on track.

Nathan Lowe scored 15 goals for Walsall in 22 League One games which earned him the League Two Young Player of the Season award

A blip becomes a blowout

Given the size of a lead like Walsall's, the odd defeat does not do much damage and even after successive losses to Bradford - a 3-0 defeat on 25 January that still left the Saddlers top by 12 and 14 points ahead of the Bantams - and Fleetwood, Sadler was not pressing any panic buttons.

Two games without a win became five - but they rebounded with back-to-back victories that still kept them eight clear of Doncaster, heading towards March.

But then they went to Cheltenham.

Leading 2-0 heading into the last minute, they conceded twice as two important points slipped away.

Defeat by Swindon saw their 13-game unbeaten run at home ended and, after failing to beat bottom club Carlisle, they lost at home again.

Four draws followed - but it was the manner of them, with Walsall chasing results rather than dictating them as they had done.

Even fighting back at Doncaster to salvage a late point failed to spark them out of the slide. The lead was down to two points and five to the chasing pack.

Defeat by title rivals Port Vale on 5 March wiped that out and, after only one point from the next two, the unthinkable had happened.

Walsall were outside the automatic promotion places, three points off leaders Vale and one point behind Bradford in third.

'It's a really tough job now, mentally'

Despite the mental baggage of a winless run that had ballooned to 13 games, Walsall went into the final match still in with a chance of salvaging a top-three spot.

They had to beat Crewe and hope Bradford got no more than a draw against Fleetwood.

And with the Saddlers leading thanks to George Hall's goal, and the Bantams at 0-0 deep in stoppage time, they were up.

Then Antoni Sarcevic scored a 96th-minute winner for Bradford.

"It's unbelievable, I feel for Mat Sadler," former Walsall boss Darrell Clarke told the 72+ podcast.

"They've just fallen off a cliff - there's nothing more you can say."

In the immediate aftermath, Sadler did his best to sound upbeat.

"Of course it's disappointing we didn't see the job out," he told BBC Radio WM. "We knew the situation but now we have to dust ourselves down and come out fighting.

"We have to take the positives and the momentum from winning the game [Crewe] into two tough play-off games."

Picking over the bones of the club's shock decline has highlighted the loss of Lowe as a potential turning point.

"To lose their talented leading scorer was a setback," said BBC Radio WM's Walsall reporter Tom Marlow.

"[It was] especially galling for fans given his limited game time in the Championship since, but it wasn't the only factor for the decline."

While Walsall's goals scored per game ratio dropped from 1.95 to 1.33 with Lowe's departure, their goals conceded per game increased by nearly 58% after he left.

And Marlow thinks that also played a big part.

"They struggled at the other end of the field, with Harry Williams a big miss – for whatever reason – at the heart of the back three," he added.

"The high-energy football from the first half of the campaign went AWOL too, with eight of the squad playing more than 50 games in all competitions.

"Perhaps they could've rotated a bit more, with the likes of Alfie Chang, Nathan Asiimwe and Evan Weir all putting in eye-catching performances when called upon."

Walsall fans were in a state of disbelief at Crewe Alexandra's Mornflake Stadium after learning Bradford had pipped them to automatic promotion

Clearly the key to recovering their promotion hopes lies in Sadler and his coaching staff somehow restoring their players' battered confidence for the play-off semi-final with Chesterfield after just three wins in 21 games.

And that, according to Clarke, is easier said than done.

"To go from where they were, to where they are now, is a really tough job mentally," he said.

"It's just been game after game after game and it must be mentally so challenging for Mat now to deal with the players and an inexperienced group.

"[Chesterfield] will play a Walsall team that's probably mentally shot, so they have a great opportunity to get to that final."

It is no surprise that Chesterfield's late surge into the top seven, thanks to a run of eight wins and four draws, has them as favourites with Opta to both reach the play-off final (53%) and win it (27%).

Walsall have the lowest probability of all four teams, with their chances rated at 46% and 22% respectively.

Walsall must 'let go of what's happened'

Former Saddlers goalkeeper Jimmy Walker won three promotions in more than a decade with the club, including in the play-off final in 2001 to reach the second tier.

"If you look back over the last two months, we haven't deserved it," Walker, who made a record 534 appearances for the club, told BBC Radio WM.

"It's not that game [Crewe] - it's down to what happened in the months before. We had two wins in 20 games, 16 points from a possible 60, you can't go up like that."

Walker agrees that Sadler and his coaches have to make the players believe promotion is still possible.

"It's really tough to pick yourself back up - this is where your staff come into it and the mindset of your players," he said.

"The psychology is massive. Can you let that go, what's happened? Because you have to.

"Now it's a cup competition. We've already drawn with, and beat, Chesterfield in the league so that's a good omen.

"I'm not saying we're going to win the play-offs but it's massive what the staff do now to get the players going again.

"Put everything to bed, get them together and say 'listen, this is how we go forward' and, to be honest, the best way to get promoted is through the play-offs.

"And what a way to do it after the season they've had."

Jimmy Walker got promoted through the play-offs twice in his career - with Walsall in 2001 and West Ham in 2005

For ex-boss Clarke, Sadler's lack of experience - Walsall is his first head coach role - compared to his rivals has also been a significant factor.

"If you look at the top seven, Doncaster - Grant McCann, an experienced manager, been there, seen it, done it," said Clarke, whose season and a half with the Saddlers included the Covid-curtailed campaign in 2020-21.

"Port Vale - Darren Moore, experienced manager, been there, seen it, done it.

"Graham Alexander at Bradford - we know what a tough job that is and they've had manager after manager but they've got another experienced manager that's seen it and done it.

"Sometimes that is the difference. Younger managers have to learn and Mat will be a lot stronger and a better manager going through this experience - no doubt.

"But it just looks like that little bit of experience has helped those top three teams."

As Walsall prepare to go again against Chesterfield on Sunday, before the return five days later, Sadler is promising his side will give it everything to extend their 56-game season by three.

"They'll need lifting up but the mentality of us is always to be fighters - and you've seen that throughout the season," he said.

Marlow thinks the win over Crewe will also help.

"They will be buoyed by going into the game with a first win in 14, two clean sheets in their last three games, and four points from six against Paul Cook's men this season," he said.

"Given the hammer blow of last Saturday's turn of events, and the mentally damaging winless run before it, a Wembley victory over Wimbledon or Notts County would turn out to be the ultimate example of doing things the hard way."

Given Walsall's season, where they became the first side for 137 years to have a 13-game winless run and nine successive wins in the same campaign, it would be fitting for there to be one more twist.