Ever wished you had stayed away on holiday? This was a performance of exceptional ineptitude and brought back all of the bad memories of the mistakes of last season,

Walsall’s problems started before the kick off, when Oakes was injured in the warm up, the second Walsall player to have done so in a matter of a few weeks. Gillmartin stepped up from the bench to make his debut, with Kris Taylor being promoted to the sixteen. The Saddlers lined up Gillmartin, Pead, Westwood, Gerrard, Fox, Standing, Osborn, Smith, Wright, Leitao and Fryatt, with a bench of Merson, K Taylor, Kinsella, Staunton and Husbands.

Chesterfield lined up in a 4 5 1, with Paul Hall as the attacking midfielder, but surprisingly left Wayne Alison on the bench. More of him later.

Let’s get one thing straight, Chesterfield are not very good. In fact they are as poor as they were last season, when we beat them fairly comfortably at home. The first half followed that pattern, with the Saddlers well in control and Fryatt superbly set up Leitao and Wright to score, the latter from a swift, incisive break. There were danger signs, however, as the defence managed to present the Spireites with three very good chances, two of which they should have scored from.

The second half began with the visitors making a tactical change. They moved from a 4 5 1, to a 4 4 2, with Wayne Alison coming on. That made all the difference. The ball was suddenly being held up and the home centre backs began to have real problems dealing with his aerial threat. Smith began to get more and more ineffectual and, inevetibly it seemed, Chesterfield pulled a goal back, with a free header from a corner. The problems were all being cused by Alison’s presence, but Merson’s solution was not to shore up the defence or the central midfield to shut off possession, but instead, to bring himself on for Standing. After three or four nice touches, his contribution to the game rapidly faded away, leaving the central midfield totally overun.

Chesterfield scored two more goals from crosses to completely take control of the game, Westwood being at fault with the first and Gerrard for the second, which gave Wayne Alison a richly deserved goal. Oh for Ian Roper to mark him!

Merson decided late on the take off the pace of Wright for Taylor, when Smith should surely have been the man to give way and Fryatt, who had created both goals, for Husbands, who never saw the ball.

Merson decided to have a go at the players after the game, blaming lack of concentration, but this was down to poor team selection (Smith again!), an inability to react to the opposition changing their tactics and inept substitutions. I’m just wishing I was back in a Greek taverna watching England win the Ashes. Mind you, anything would be more entertaining than this.