Just two weeks ago, Paul Merson went to Tamworth, despite having offers from clubs in the first division and even the Championship, according to the player.

In a recent interview, he said that his one regret at Walsall this season was that he hadn’t been able to play one player more times – himself. He said (inaccurately as it happens) that we hadn’t lost when he played this season.

After one 90 minute appearance for Tamworth in the Conference and one game sitting on the bench, he has decided to retire from football.

Perhaps the whole sorry episode has been brought to an end at last.

Walsall’s plans for Sunday have been thrown into some disarray by the postponement of the reserve game at Bradford.

Kevan Broadhurst’s plans to try and bring in a loan striker appear to have met with frustration so far, so the reserve clash had taken on far more importance than usual.

The manager has said “We’ve had no joy at all. We’re very, very, frustrated at the moment but that’s life. It’s one of those things in football, it’s not unusual and we’ll just get on with and work as hard as we can”.

He had, therefore, lined up Devlin, James, a recovered Constable and Mads Timm, also back from injury, to play at Bradford, to give him an indication of who should start at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday. Those plans having been dashed, it’s back to square one in the puzzle of who will start where exactly.

Walsall Manager Kevan Broadhurst has revealed that he had a big advantage over most of his rivals for the job after Paul Merson’s sacking - insider knowledge.

Being out of the game and wanting to “keep in touch”, Broadhurst had asked Merson if he could attend Walsall training sessions when the former manager was still here.

“When Paul Merson was here, he and Mick Halsall [head of youth] used to let me come and watch the players train.

“I was out of the game and they let me come down here because I still wanted to be around football.

“So that gave me a little bit of a head start.”

Braodhurst feels that this insight has enabled him to “hit the ground running” and his change to a more intensive training regime does show that he has quickly identified one of the major faults in the squad.