12 minutes to make a difference

All About Walsall
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Hi all. I think this is my first ever time starting a post so take it easy on me. As I’m sure most of you will agree that yesterday was awful. For most of the game we looked devoid of ideas and once again it was hoof ball with a very ineffective midfield.

For me that all changed with 12 minutes to go. When we bought on Asiimwe, Albert and Chang for Barrett, Hall and Jellis we suddenly looked more like the team we had pre Christmas.

Chang looked composed, moved forward and picked simple passes that bought forwards into play. This really helped the two strikers who suddenly looked more lively. Rather than having to deal with 50 yard lumped passes, they were having balls to feet and looked threatening.

Asiimwe and Albert also gave us much more width and started to really stretch the opposition.

So in summary to save our season Sadler needs to learn from those last 12 minutes and take the shackles off. Play that same team for the remainder of the season. If we miss out on automatic promotion at least I would be more optimistic with those players going into the playoffs.

Over to you Sadler. Oh and for the record I just know he will start Barrett and Jellis at Newport :man_facepalming:t3:

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He won’t, otherwise he would have already.

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I’d have Hall Chang Asiimwe and Adomah in the starting team on Monday. Won’t happen though.

They like to pass the ball and keep it which means it’s more likely some of them are removed from the squad.

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Won’t ever happen, he will play for a draw.

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Well done on starting your first post and I totally agree those twelve minutes saw a very lacklustre team transformed and the players mentioned should be in the starting lineup but MS picks the squad so I doubt very much that it will be anything other than more of the same.

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Great first OP.

I completely agree. For me it knocks into a cocked hat any Sadler apologists who suggest he was shafted by the owners in the January window.

He wasn’t.

This squad has more than enough depth and breadth to be the 18th best team in the 4th division from January.

It is absolutely criminal what he’s done to Barrett, Jellis, Stirk and Matt. He’s drained them both physically and mentally. They are gone with both fatigue and pressure. And yet he keeps playing them. Jamma being asked to do 95 minutes yesterday ffs.

It would have been criminal had Sadler not had to throw in a couple of kids for a few games but it’s an absolute dereliction of his responsibilities to both the players and the football club that we’ve had very good back up who can’t even make the bench most weeks.

Fleetwood away was the first big red flag for me. We just didn’t turn up at all. And we’ve barely turned up since.

Oh and Albert. No surprise at all than when he came on wide yesterday he looked very dangerous. How many of us for how long have been saying Adomah doesn’t work as centre forward?

Yesterday’s starting eleven wasn’t far off what I’d have picked to be fair but again it was criminal that they needed to take the lead and create another two or three massive opportunities before he changed it. He only ever makes changes like that to save a game rather than to win a game. Opposition managers (McCann is very good at his) actually positively impact the game with their pro-active changes. Sadler only gets there as a Hail Mary.

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It took about two minutes to see that Chang is a good footballer.
He made a couple of passes with his head that were better than some of our players can hit with their feet.
He should play on Monday but selections appear to be random, so who knows?

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Mat Sadler lets football happen to him.

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No chance will he change tactics formations etc, as I’ve always said Sadler is very limited in his coaching abilities. I personally don’t think he has the nous required to outwit other managers and don’t even suggest that he can motivate players. We have witnessed a meltdown of Chernobyl proportions, only Walsall could achieve this embarrassing spectacle, we are the laughing stock of league 2 and probably the other leagues. When you hear the mighty Harrogate few dozen tell us “ Top of the league and you fcuked it up “ it really brings it home, something I’m afraid that we will have to endure for many seasons to come, can we win against mighty Newport, Accrington, Crewho , possibly, but my head is saying of course we can’t, the players don’t believe it and the fans don’t believe it, god I hope I’m wrong. Should Sadler walk the plank absolutely yes!! But it won’t happen before the season ends, if at all ? I would say bye, bye regardless if we somehow stumble into league 1, he would be a disaster in the league above, I also include Byfield and Waddock in this calamity. I think the yanks/ Canadians will persist with our Chernobyl manager at least until the opening months of the new season and will suddenly realise we need a change when the sloppies come and give us a sheep shagging. It’s all very depressing from what should have been an absolute walk in the park to promotion and the title considering how far we were in front come January, we couldn’t even see the others in our rear view mirror !! I’m off to find a dark room to contemplate if I should be seen in public again or wait till everyone including the media stop reminding me of our calamitous cock up.

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There was a time when Sadler could accidentally stumble on a selection and come out looking like he knew what he was doing.

I’m starting to doubt he’s even got that in him now.

You could literally have never watched a football match in your life and know which position to play Adomah just by looking him up on wikipedia.

Asiimwe - was very good for a few games when Sadler was forced to play him, but all it took was one ineffectual half, and he was not only subbed, but bombed out of the squad entirely for the next game.

Chang - well where do we even start?? Everyone knows this lad is a class above this level. Sadler has played defenders in midfield…and started Brendan frigging Comley before giving him the less than half an hour pitch time he’s been afforded in 3 months.
Will he start him Monday? He should do, but the fact that there’s even a doubt, yet alone a probability that he won’t demonstrates Sadler’s ineptitude. Chang would walk into any midfield in this league, and probably most at the level above. Why isn’t Sadler getting some scrutiny from the press on this?

If by some random miracle Sadler starts Chang, Asiimwe, and plays Adomah in a creative wide role and we stumble to promotion it will actually be as much of a source of frustration as blessed relief, as it will demonstrate - as did the last 12 minutes yesterday - just how easy it would have been to properly deploy the resources at the club for the betterment of the team and results.

In my opinion also, when Lowe left, it was a great opportunity to give DJ a run in the side to get him match sharp. Say 6 or 7 games. Fair enough he might have failed, but at least give him a chance, as a proven goalscorer that would hardly have been a gamble, and the fact that DJ has matched the post January goal contributions of Matt, Harrison, and Amantchi despite hardly playing is strongly suggestive that he would have scored a lot more than any of them had he been given a run of starts.

What a mess, and a self-made one at that.

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FTFY :slightly_smiling_face:

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It would be good if Sadler started the game monday with the same players that ended yesterdays game, but will he?
Strikes me as a very stubborn sort of guy, maybe even a little arrogant.
Don’t like the players being booed any time, but didn’t like the way Sadler walked along the home end at the end of the game clapping and shaking his head at the same time looking at us all with such disdain.
There’s a reason some booed Sadler, we were very poor again mate and it’s mainly your fault.

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When Lowe left this team had four options
Options

  1. Like for like replacement quality wise - highly unlikely

  2. Like for like replacement style wise (mobile ball carrying forward able to press) we didn’t do our prep poor recruitment

  3. work with what we have in DJ and tweak the style of play. With 20ish games left find our grove and utilise a good finisher

  4. Sign any old forward and use what we have but not tweak how we play we resort to hoof

Our manager chose option 4

We are reaping the benefits. Sorry if this offends club apologists or is seen as goading but please tell me which option we went for if it ain’t 4

Great post on the 12 minutes by the way,

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Without the DJ goal at Donny we would be two points off third place and Donny would be top, five points ahead of us. So it was an important goal that has kept us in the race, and DJ was only brought on after 87 minutes. Despite that, a couple of games later Bollock Chops doesn’t even put him on the bench in a must-win home game.
It’s all very strange.

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Wheatley is seen (by u19 England coaches) as at least as good as Nathan Lowe.

He hasn’t been in the game at all in the moments I have seen him play.

I have to assume that the people who see these players in training every day can see that some players are not ready.

I would LOVE to see Chang start, but there has to be a reason (other than ‘Sadler doesn’t know what he’s doing’).

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Again, I get the love for DJ (I think the truth will come out, after he leaves, though) but looking at the bench, do you drop Levi or Adomah?

Personally, Ellis Harrison has looked ‘off’ in recent games, but his track record is actually pretty decent.

Jamma is captain, so it’s a difficult one, I understand.

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The thing is that when our blip in form became a rut, it didn’t really matter who Sadler picked.

He doesn’t have the tactical nous to re-align the system to the personnel, which is what he should’ve done around mid to late Feb when the rot was setting in.

People calling for different players to start forget that Sadler did try different options occasionally - Adomah got a few starts up top, OM got a couple in midfield and then became a regular in defence. Levi had a couple of starts etc etc.

The problem isn’t that Sadler hasn’t rotated, it’s that he’s been reactionary - his rotations have been after the problems have set in, often long after they’ve set in, and often when his hand has been forced. Similar to how in games he stands there arms folded as the team disintegrates on the pitch. Oppo managers make changes and he waits, and waits like an advert for fecking Guiness.

I don’t know whether it’s his pig-headed-ness, or that he can’t see it.

Regarding the squad management, Barrett is the most glaring example of this - he played on for 4 or 5 weeks after we the fans noticed he was running on empty, before Sadler was effectively forced to give Asiimwe a run by him getting his 10th yellow.

Stirk is another one - he had a great first 6 months but clearly the energetic press that he gave us had waned and he should’ve been managed, he wasn’t.

Jamille Matt has been worn in to the ground so much that he’s now more of a problem than an asset.

Jellis looks a shadow of the player he was in the first half of the season. All whilst we supposedly signed two bright young players in Chang and Lipsuic - the latter having made more appearances for Stoke under 23s than us since he joined.

And then we have the self-inflicted Harry Williams situation. Him miraculously coming back yesterday really annoys me because it shows Sadler (and the club) in a bad light again. It’s only when their hand is effectively forced that they act.

Sadler is just fecking clueless, irrespective of how poor our business was in January (and it was poor, as I said at the time - just look back at the thread) …Sadler had the tools to finish the job. Granted it wouldn’t have been spectacular, but he had the tools and if he had half a brain cell to go with it we’d be up now. As it turns out he’s managed to turn us in to the worst form team in the division whilst somehow also managing to completely burn out his squad.

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When Sadler was appointed (if my memory serves me correctly) we were told the following:

  1. front foot football
  2. develop playing the “Walsall Way”
  3. develop a culture / structure so that if a new manager came in he would fit in with what was already there and there would be no need for wholesale changes.
    May I ask what on earth happened to this and why was it decided that aimless long balls where better than front foot football. Also, as I dont have any coaching badges so the answer may be too complicated for me, but why is it better to continually pick players who are out of form and making the same mistakes every week when you have better options in the squad?
    UP THE SADDLERS
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Aren’t all our youth teams supposedly being trained to play the same ‘style’ as the first team?

Heaven help us.

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This is spot on, but I think there’s even more to it.

Each player has different abilities and traits and changing them should be part of a tactical tweak to make use of their strengths. We don’t do that.

We swap a player and then they play exactly the same way as the player who has come out.

Yesterday, I couldn’t see any benefit of making subs as the players weren’t really the problem, we just needed to get the ball down and play.

The tactics were clear and they weren’t working. Simkin clearly being told to go long. A centre back picks the ball up and both midfielders run off far into the channels leaving no option but to lump it at defenders who knew exactly what was coming.

We don’t force the opposition into any sort of decision on tracking a runner Vs picking up the short option. It’s just one plan over and over again.

It’s not the players choosing to do this as when we’ve lumped it for the 100th time and lost the ball when there was a clear option to build the play, Sadler is on his feet applauding the attempt. It’s absolute insanity.

As soon as we started playing football their keeper feigned an injury as a goal was clearly coming, we scored shortly after and were well on top.

Play Harrogate at actual football yesterday and we win easily.

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