I was really disappointed today
I think Dean got it wrong, I think we needed Cook from the start.
However, my biggest issue was that we were just to slow and pedestrian.
When we played with tempo we opened them up but 3 touch passing and slowing playing side to side allows them to drop in and shape up and they were very efficient and effective at that.
Overall we had the quality but didn’t stamp the authority.
Think Ismal and Osborne were very poor and would look to change that for Tuesday
It was ‘one of them’ today.
The penalty… I’m looking forward to seeing the decision again, having only seen it in real time. Either the ref has made a truly world-class spot (if so, I’ll doff my cap), or he ■■■■ the bed worse than any other ref I’ve seen at Bescot in 25 years. I know where my money is.
It was a weird ‘one of them’ where no-one was particularly great, but no-one did anything especially wrong either. Ismail and Ginnelly each looked a threat in spells, but you never felt the final ball was there with either. Neither ‘poor’ per se, but its fair to say that Morris has been dropped this season after better days.
Gordon played an absolute peach of a ball to Ismail for our possible penalty, but that aside, was pretty ineffective. I don’t recall Cook finding a red shirt with a flick on or lay-off all second half.
My first time seeing Ronan, and based on the picture of a creative attacking midfielder I’d created of him in my mind, I thought he for Osbourne was the right move at the time it was made. However, maybe I’m doing the lad a disservice based on 20 minutes of an overall-middling performance, but while he was generally tidy, I was expecting Emmanuel Ledesma, and I got Nicky Featherstone. He appears, on first glance, to be best suited at being the spare man in a central three- a system I don’t forsee us employing too often.
Accrington were organised, got several decent blocks in around the final third, and were marginally sharper than us for the first 20 minutes of each half, but they didn’t particularly feel like much an active attacking threat at any time. Certainly didn’t look any more likely winners than we did, if you remove their gift of a goal. They wasted far more than the three minutes added, too… again, ‘one of them’ that we would have utterly lapped up us going away and doing to somebody else.
And to top it all off, our final chance at an attack is snuffed out by Ismail and Devlin wiping each other out, going for an innocuous ball.
So, yeah. One of them. The disappointing aspect is that I thought this side had put days like ‘them’ behind us for a while.
happy to be proved wrong but it looked a penalty to me , player got to the ball first and Osbourne caught him.
Say what you want about the ref but you can’t blame him for that performance and lack of quality. Dobson for me did nothing clearly worried about that 5th booking , and Osbourne is completely useless when he ponders around like today.
Onto the next one.
Easy to blame the ref for this but it was a below par performance by everyone and we did not deserve to get anything out of it.
A game of 2 penalties the Accrington one where nobody in the ground or on the pitch apart from ref knows why it was given, not one Accrington player appealed for it which makes you think they saw nothing. The other a blatant foul by their keeper on Ismail totally ignored.
A game to forget and onwards to the Shrews and a better performance and result.
I thought it was a stick on pen. No communication to let Osbourne know there was a player around and said player nipped in and the foot Osbourne was planning to put through the ball went through the man instead.
For the first time this season I can’t really find any redeeming features from today. We were poor all over the park. Some of the decision making, especially Ginnelly was woeful. Summed his decision making up when he chose to catch the ball instead of heading it.
Dobson was below his normal standard. He wasn’t going to get that “suspended for Shrewsbury” fifth booking today was he? Just let their number seven run past him on several occasions.
Osbourne laboured, whilst our front two were out-fought and out-thought at every turn.
Only three minutes of added time was annoying but I doubt we’d have scored if we were still playing now.
One to forget.
Agree with every word.
This week’s penalty decisions. (Sky)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Byfcd67o_8IE6WKsRWw2HEBZKIzQc9vE/view?usp=drivesdk
A very frustrating afternoon.
From where I was sitting (OAP stand) it didn’t look a penalty and no one around me thought it was either.
Accrington played their game (and the ref) brilliantly.
We just weren’t at it today, too many below par performances i’m afraid.
That said, we did have our chances and I’m disappointed we didn’t get a draw that I think even our below par performance deserved.
That we didn’t, I think, is down to another dismal refereeing performance.
I’m not even going to mention the measly 3 minutes - bugger!
Hope i’m wrong, but the home form is worrying and seems to be more than a blip or bad day at the office.
Last home win 18th August
No home win in 4
1 goal in last 3 home games.
Stanley GK made some good saves but i never felt confident we would score.
Didn’t think it was a penalty at the time, still don’t after watching TV highlights. For the record i didn’t think Ismail was fouled either.
Hope Morris and Cook start on Tuesday. Really need to win and put this run behind us.
Hahahahaha the over reaction is hilarious. Get a grip
Jesus H Christ.
Plot lost by some AGAIN. And social media is even worse. FARCE.
I thought we were very lethargic and didn’t move the ball about quick enough to turn defence into attack, that’s been one of our strengths this season.
Dobbo had a relatively poor game for his standards and I feel a lot of our play is dependant on him, Osbourne is becoming a worry for me he’s increasingly looked more tired earlier in games as the weeks go by, Ferrier and Gordon never looked like they knew where each other where, in fact the only thing I’d say positive to come out of yesterday’s performance is the understanding of our two centre backs Guthrie and Fitzater, they’re beginning to form a decent partnership.
I also think Morris can feel himself hard done by to once again be on the bench, let’s just hope it was one of them days and we come out Tuesday and give the Salops a hammering, not gonna press the panic button yet but last few weeks have certainly brought us back down to earth.
No wins in 4 home games.One goal in last three home league games. Failure to beat mediocre Macclesfield.Three goals conceded to that team.Appauling. Team needs midfield movement and skill.Full backs weak.Come on Keates get the job done.Less talking, more action.
I really can’t tell if some of these doom mongers are trolls or not. Talk about over-reacting. Yesterday wasn’t a great performance but Keates has performed miracles on this squad in a matter of months. Turning a L1 basement club into a top half one ( I think we’ll finish 10th-12th). It took Smith years to do this, and we all know how good a manager he is/has become. I’m not even going to say “keep the faith in Deano” because anyone questioning his position at the club at the moment needs to give their head a wobble.
From the highlights it looked like Ripley had one of the best keeping displays v the Saddlers in many a year!
In a strange way that reassures me more than the Blackpool game. Below par performance from the team yet still created 4-5 good chances whereas Blackpool completely snuffed out the attacking threat.
With all the pace in the team results will be better away from home I think so think home results will be inconsistant for a while as visiting teams give Walsall more respect.
I do expect a win on Tuesday though.
I get some of the frustration. There are around 3,500 people at home games who haven’t had the first hand jubilation of some of our away results. And as James above says, the last four home games haven’t been great. Getting beat on pens by the worst team in the country probably the worst and then one goal in the three league games not much better.
You can only be a surprise package for so long and Dean has limited options.
We all need to re-boot our expectations a bit. Staying out of relegation trouble was as much as many of us expected in the middle of closed season. I’m really confident we can do a lot better than that.
Which is great.
I don’t get the frustration. We are 7th in the table and that is good after last year. I agree we need more creativity at home now as teams have sussed us out but we have a real hard working,enthusuastic group who are doing their best. It is easy to come on here and criticise after a poor result but I think we have some good players who will improve as the season goes on. UTS
For anyone that wants to see Devlin and Ismail taking out each other (and the ball boy!)
https://twitter.com/leescarter/status/1046071250567745538
I was standing directly in front of it when it happened, Mark Hughes then walked over and started shouting “you deserved that” 
no need for it is there really?
As ever ,the reality appears to be between the two extremes. DK inherited a lot of players he probably wouldn’t have re-signed if their contracts had been up in the summer. The word "transitional " springs to mind.