The Saddlers, who started the season among the better performing teams in the league, have won just four of their last twenty-one league games and, with just sixteen games remaining, have to begin to make the most of their opportunities as relegation is still a very big possibility.
Speaking via the Express & Star, Dean said; "It’s been tough and I can understand fans getting frustrated. I come from a council estate in Walsall myself so I know people are struggling with how it is going.
"It is not been great since the first quarter of the season when we were on such a good run. Did expectations explode? I think they did. But from day one I have always said we are in a sprint with ourselves to get to 52 points. We would have hoped it would have happened a lot sooner.
"But we are in a position now where we want to finish the season as high as we can in the table. It’s not great. But there are teams below us who would take our position compared with theirs. And it can look a lot rosier over the next week. We need a performance and a result against Blackpool.
"Then we have our game in hand against Wimbledon on Tuesday. After that the table could look a lot different. But that can work both sides – we are not kidding ourselves. We are well aware of the situation we are in. But we have got 16 games left and they are massive games."