It’s now early July. With the continued absence of Zaaboub, the sale of Gerrard, Ibehre’s disappearance and the release of Ricketts, Hughes, Boertien, and to a lesser extent Bacchus, our squad for the 2009-2010 campaign is now anorexic rather than just looking thin.

This time last year our owner, Jeff Bonser, ran an interview with the local press. In it he stated:

“My ambition, which is shared by each of my board colleagues, is for Walsall Football Club to return to the Championship…[and] I can promise that the next [managerial] appointment will be the candidate we consider able to take the club to the Championship”

Having set that in stone, he appointed Jimmy Mullen as manager and was then forced into a dramatic about-turn in January when it became clear that a return to the basement rather than the Championship was more likely to be on the cards.

Uncle Jeff also managed to state that we’re building a club to compete effectively at a higher level. 12 months on and the squad nucleus is young, inexperienced and in desperate need of guidance. What are we building?

Hutchings still has the backing of the fans (as does his assistant O’Connor), despite an indifferent run-in following his appointment, and it is perhaps a measure of how low expectations have sunk already that this is now deemed acceptable. Naturally, lower expectations will mean less moans in the new campaign; Who thinks a top 6 finish is likely compared to those who are hoping not to be in the bottom 4?

Whether the management backing from fans continues to a new season honeymoon period is crucial to Saddlers supporters’ view of the season ahead. After the calamitous drop in home crowds at the Banks’s stadium last season (curse that recession) it seems many fans have already decided that the honeymoon was over even before the appointment – a case of too little too late.

Given the collapse in income from sponsors and crowds and some very indifferent cup campaigns last season, the only silver lining to the finance cloud is the money from Gerrard, and the windfall cash from Birmingham’s rapid return to the Premiership. Will this be enough to entice any decent players to Walsall?

Some things that our supporters must keep in the back of their mind for next season are that Uncle Jeff was 64 last month, that the club owes him a large sum of money and that he won’t go on for ever.

Due to those factors, this season will at best be a season of marking time. It may well be Bonser’s desire to see the club in the Championship, but it will almost certainly not happen under his stewardship. We may well wish to compete effectively at a higher level but this doesn’t appear to be an option under the current regime.

After more than 20 years of Jeff calling all the shots, it’s gone stale. Mr. Bonser, as Walsall FC’s owner, chairman, landlord and number one fan, it’s time to do your final duty. Find us a replacement.

In what was widely accepted as Walsall’s longest-running transfer saga, Anthony Gerrard is off to Cardiff, after agreeing personal terms and passing a medical.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no details of how much Cardiff’s offer was, although describing it as “just south of an undisclosed fee” is probably accurate.

Gerrard joined Paul Merson’s Walsall from Everton, after failing to cut the mustard at the top grade, signing in the Summer of 2005 along with Dan Fox. Including his loan spell he turned out for the Saddlers 172 times, netting 7 goals in the process and establishing himself in the heart of the defence.

He never quite recovered from feeling left behind when Scott Dann and Fox went to Coventry, and had been transfer listed for 12 months, since a bid from Southampton was rejected last Summer. Knowing this, the club’s had plenty of time to manage their expectations, establish a fair value and source a replacement. Knowing Walsall, none of this has been done.

There’s now 37 days till our first competitive match, with no firm signs of any signings beyond Wolves crock Lewis Gobern trialling with us. Whether this means Chris Hutchings is playing his cards close to his chest or has no cards to play with is moot. Increasingly, the signs are that our competitive budget (copyright Roy Whalley) is not so competitive after all. The money from Gerrard’s sale may be just what we need.

The club have issued a statement on the OS, saying that a written bid of £200,000 for Anthony Gerrard has been turned down. The bid was from Scunthorpe, but did not meet our valuation.

The sting in the tail is that the statement goes on to say that the player is attracting a lot of interest elsewhere. It seems that, far from expecting an immediate arrival, we may be getting an immediate departure.