For me, when Llera left this season and it was quite obvious something was fundamentally wrong at the club, I realised that some people will never be able to take off their WFC tinted specs. For the millionth time I came on here and see the usual suspects defending what is quite obviously a very toxic situation due to incompetence, mismanagement and piss poor leadership. A bloke that has been historically accused of bullying on many occasions, including a headline ‘unpopular coach sacked’ - and yet again; “its the fans making something out of nothing", or “it’s Llera being bitter”, “Pomlett would not tolerate bullying” (did he not even come out and say this - more nonsense to add the list).
I was banging on about Bonser losing interest and the incompetence of Mole and Gamble 5 / 6 years ago. The fact young adults were being attracted to other clubs in the West Midlands, paying less for Championship football than to see League 1 / League 2 football. And guess what, all the same posters were defending all of them. Many have come round to the idea a little more now but how long has it taken? And in the meantime we have sunk like a stone. If I could be arsed I would source some of the posts.
LP has been in that board room with the alllllll these characters for an awfully long time. I am sorry, I could not care less because as well meaning as he is - LP is a part of the problem and nothing will improve until these characters from the Bonser era are shown the door at Walsall. He can still do it - but he will not do it, for whatever reason - which for me is the most worrying. Yet again, news about the freehold and a good, proven manager is rolled out at Early Bird time - and lo and behold we are all crossing our fingers again. Fair play to em, its a marketing masterclass.
We will still be here next season with all the same tired issues and the very same posters defending the indefensible, simply because its all the same people pulling the strings at Walsall Football Club. I can’t wait for the discussions.
Somebody has posted above - ‘we could support Oldham’ without spotting the elephant in the room - we could so easily have been in Oldham’s position! If Holden had not returned last year it could have even been last season!
It never fails to amuse me that the one tangible thing people cling to in defence of Pomlett is that “well, he’s not Bonser!”, a reign they deem so terrible (almost exclusively played out at a higher level than they we are now) that even the mere mention of his name causes derision, chants and cypriot flags.
Maybe, but we were only 5 points off the playoffs going into January. By the end of that run following the Tranmere victory in mid-February, we were then 6 points off relegation (16 behind play-offs). January certainly changed the shape of our season - we failed to invest and failed to win matches.
Even if we’d turned every one of those seven games into a victory, we still wouldn’t have got enough points to have finished in a play-off place. We’d have been ninth.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here, perhaps I should have replied to Thanatos’s post rather than yours. Yes, Mansfield and Bristol Rovers had very good second halves of the seasons. However, my point was that If we’d won those seven games, it still wouldn’t have got us into the play-offs. We would have ended on 75 points. Mansfield would have lost the three they gained from us, and Sutton would have got the last play-off place. We’d have finished behind Tranmere on goal difference. Pomlett suggesting otherwise is just plain wrong.
It’s all on the viewpoint, not defending him quite the opposite, but I kind of with Leigh that this run killed our season, if we’d have one picked up 12 more points (beat 10-men of Bristol Rovers, Bradford, Stevenage, and Scunthorpe say) we’d have been ~4 points off play-offs with the players having confidence and the fans behind them.
So I agree that those 7-games changed the season, but I feel it’s ultimately Leigh’s fault for not investing in what we needed in January.
Fair enough. It’s arguable, but we never seriously bothered the play-offs before that run of seven defeats, we were 13th before and 21st after. Ludicrously, Pomlett was still talking about reaching the play-offs even after sacking Taylor, with us 18 points adrift of them and on the verge of the bottom two (we would have had to win 16 of the 17 remaining games!!)
After that draw at home to Newport on New Years Day we needed to average two points a game to reach the play-offs. Nothing before or after that suggests that was ever a possibility with this team.
Never really watched them before, but echoing others comments, one of the best interviews with LP. Much much much better than the shitty questions he normally gets asked. I thought he created a good raport with him too that allowed some more direct questions.
I still think hes got a WFC “The Business” mentality, but came over ok. If LP unites us with the freehold, then it was good to have him here.
Maybe if you were to take off your “WFC everything is shit” specs, you might realise that the majority of fans, while wanting more success, actually enjoy supporting the club.
