That picture SaddlerJK says it all.
Six hundred spectators behind the goal who deserve so much better.
Then eleven spectators in front of the goal who deserve the stick they are now getting.
Anybody who still thinks there is any hope just look at that picture.
I have to laugh at it now in a way. I was seething walking out of that game yesterday but to be honest the thought of being rid of this outfit in a few weeks is providing some comfort. Plus, I don’t have to kid myself with hope anymore. I’m so sick of exactly the same story every week, where even the most basic rudiments of defending and football in general cannot be grasped by a bunch of players who for the most part couldn’t care less for us or each other. Cup your ears at that one, boys.
An Oldham supporting mate of mine sent me a message earlier after watching the video of that goal, basically just expressing pure awe/laughter at how bad it is. And he’s been watching League Two football all season with essentially a Bond villain as an owner and the circus that entails. Sums it up.
Last time the club went down it signed a shed load of experienced players to stem the bleeeding.
Just looking at the regular 11 during that season. Now forgive me if some of the players were already there in 2005/06 but from what I see Clayton Ince came in who was a brilliant signing no question. That sort of signing was badly needed this season and certainly will be needed next season, experienced head in goal who can pull off great saves, command his six yard box and transmit calm.
Then at back likes of Dobson and Westwood were signed so you had a really nice mix in the back 5, three experienced heads and promising youngsters called Danny Fox, Anthony Gerrard and Scott Dann. A million or so clean sheets followed over next 2 seasons.
Midfield saw the return of one Dean Keates during the season and upfront the season finished with Trevor Benjamin and Martin Butler as regular strikeforce and they knew how to score and hold the ball up.
With the way the budget is these days next to no chance when team lines up for first game in August they’ll be 5-6 seen it done it league two standard players in the team.
It will be more gambles on out of contract players, young players let go by prem clubs and hoping 4-5 of the existing squad who stay can shine at that level. I just hope we don’t have another ridiculous situation where final pre season game includes 3-4 trialists.
Automatic promotion will be a long shot next season imo.
And Devlin cupping his ears to his own fans
I actually now cannot stand my own players
For the dignity of the fans Please moc make an heroic statement to this bunch of chocolate fire guards and play the kids
I’d bloody love that
It won’t happen SHQ. You may be too young, but this is far more like 89/90. The following season we finished 17th in the fourth tier.
As I posted elsewhere, the big worry for me is that going into 90/91 we had better players contracted than we have now.
We are in “double drop” territory. The next few weeks will possibly see our last games at our historically natural third tier level for at least half a decade.
Massive rebuilding job required. Would be good if that started with the owner/chairman/landlord with the rest of the board also considering their positions.
Well in my opinion with the right manager you could make a team out of the squad we have. I also think that Keates was the problem with team selection and tactics and that’s why the players have lost the will to live.
Why keep bring players in who can’t get in the team. What did Johnson do wrong, I thought he was improving with every game. Why did he not play Morris when he was on his best form and then ship him out. Why take so long to put B-Taylor in the team. Why play hoof ball and then blame the players for doing it. Why do we play our best football in the last 20 minutes.
It’s either the training sessions or man management or both. Couple that with the wrong balance in the team sent out and we don’t score enough and concede too many. As many have said we needed to play League 1 football in this league and thats what we did against Barnsley and we were very unlucky to lose. We then played a poor Oxford at their own game and look what happened. Wrong team, wrong tactics.
That’s an incrediblly lame excuse for ‘professional’ footballers. Over the past two seasons they have been deployed in numerous formations, combinations and styles. They’re simply not good enough, and collectively their attitude towards WFC, including the fans, is terrible.
I’ve never disliked a Walsall team before, but this group of players make it so difficult to support them when they consistently don’t put in the required effort of application. Yesterday was just another in a long line of aberrations and O’Connor was absolutely spot on with his comments.
In the incredibly minute possibility they manage to drag themselves out of this, you just know there will be subtle digs at the fans rather than them celebrating their success. Just as we’ve seen numerous times this season with the ridiculous cupping of the ears celebrations.
It’s not an excuse Tom, its my opinion. You can’t outplay Barnsley and not have ability.
I think the Bradford through to Doncaster (1st half) games kept Keates in the job. As soon as Keates went back to the basic 4-4-2 we all knew wouldn’t work, he was gone.
Fair play. I would say though, does it not frustrate you more then that they have ability, but clearly don’t have the application/attitude to put that into practice?
YIt’s more about attitude though isnt it?
You can be the cleverest, the fastest, the toughest and have all the skills and abilities needed to achieve things (sometimes, great things) but if your attitude is crap then all the ability and brains in the world are somewhat impeded when it comes to performance.
This is the key problem and unfortunately it’s exactly the thing that gets managers sacked every week.
Our problem is that we seem to have few (or currently, seemingly) no high class and experienced professionals either in the squad or the backroom staff to prevent the ‘disruptors’ from dominating the playing staff.
They (the players) seem to think the fans are unreasonable but what they forget is that they are paid to perform (that doesn’t mean to win every game) but they simply don’t even care about their reputations anymore because they want out the club too and all we have left is a bunch of unsupervised petulant guys that know they are gone 8n a few weeks time and they can move on to something better
I’m a bit calmer now after yesterday and it strikes me that what we really lack is an experienced footballing individual to help deal with some of this arrogance from the players…
The fault ultimately lies with the board and their choices…
I was happy with Keates when he was appointed but said at the time he mus5 bring in some experienced coaching staff and he clearly didn’t get people with the adequate experience and or skills to help him - when things went sour they did so quickly and dramatically and we’ve never recovered
All that said, it’s only an opinion and I’m sure it’ll be countered by others but in my opinion no one can defend the players as they are ckwarly instrumental in our current dilemma
Previous season the same defence (with Kory Roberts) could do this link. GD minus two after 35 games. This season? Russell Martin deal convinced them, they are all not good enough. I don’t know what’s happened in the dressing room, but later team looked lost, bereft of any confidence.
My team for next Friday would be something like…
Dunn/Slinn
Edwards
Scarr
Johnson
Fitzwater
Laird
Moussa
Kinsella
Bates
Candlin/Zeli
Oteh
Subs
Dunn/Slinn
Candlin/Zeli
Leivesy
Norman
I would deliberately name only three outfield subs as a message to those tosspots who bottled it yesterday that they are finished at Walsall FC. If Chambo is even 50% fit I would have him in. I don’t care if Laird isn’t fit, whats the point in being fit if you play like Leahy?? I was pretty fit when I was Leahy’s age but I was a housing officer at Sandwell Council that swam a mile and a half a day at Haden baths in my dinner break, none of which meant I should have been playing for Walsall. Time for a real statement from MOC. I reckon we can stay up, but not with the bottlers that played yesterday.
I agree with playing 2 goalies Geordie
Might give us a chance
3 players left unmarked :-/ and Fitzwater thinks he’s going to play at the Albion not when he marks like that :-/
that is a truly shocking sight.
I still don’t want to talk about that performance. As O’Connor said, it had nothing. I don’t even want to go on Friday. I don’t want to see these players in a Walsall shirt again. I really wish that was the last game of the season.
Know how you feel Dan, things could be worse ( can’t think of anything at the moment) I bought the cheap ticket offer for the last 2 home games and regretted it even more since the weekend. I know I’m going to be more depressed leaving the ground than when I went in!! Still it’s an opportunity to voice my anger at the spineless cretins in suits and the team strip!
Same here, and we have also brought tickets for Wycombe and Shrewsbury 
Think I used all of my anger from the last few weeks/months at the end of the Accrington game! I’ll be leaving just before the final whistle on Saturday if we’re losing. The players don’t even deserve the effort of screaming at them at the end, and even with hundreds of fans screaming at them it still doesn’t seem to sink in.
Bloody hell mate, thought I had problems buying 2 tickets! Have you tried the Samaritans 