I have said before that DC is a nice guy, but i think he underestimated the task when he took us over, hence the likes of hill rejecting the chance to take the helm.
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It wasn’t worse than what he took over at Bristol Rovers. Came in for John Ward and couldn’t stop them going into non league. From there he quickly got them up, then they got up from league 2 on last day and then established themselves in mid table league 1. Had Leeds wanting him.
Guess he’s just one of these managers where the methods that worked brilliantly at one club can’t be replicated elsewhere although think we’ll see that for certain in whoever he manages next.
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Walsall are an enigma mate, there are to many things going on in the background, it is not just about football 
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Cheltenham got Duff from Burnley academy so I honestly think it will be that sort of coach, probably give Llera 4-5 games as caretaker and see if he can do anything.
Jimmy Shan would’ve been decent, Solihull another to add to the list of teams that probably has better budget now which is taking the mick a fair bit!
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I personally can’t see DC going on to better things elsewhere. He’s had a carte Blanche with a decent budget which he had ■■■■■■■ up the wall .
Good luck to the next club that falls for his bullshido.
I would just like to point out that what I said might have been harsh, and on reflection it was in the heat of the moment following the latest set of rubbish, but I don’t rescind it. Here’s why I take particular exception to the bloke, something I’ve never really been able to explain before:
The thing that irks me the most is that he seems, to me, to have a thinly veiled contempt for the fans. Fans that have been there long before him and will be long after. Fans that aren’t paid to be at a match, but pay to be at a match. Fans that at the latest count of Robs fantastic campaign have raised 5 grand in two months, fans that have barely asked for refunds of season tickets. Fans that some clubs in the country would give their right ■■■■■■■ arm for.
On the face of it he says nothing offensive about the fans but I believe, if you read between the lines of what he says, the fans really are a big bug bear of his.
I have now lost count of the amount of times he has said “the expectation is there because historically the club has performed at a higher level, this is the reality though”. Like I say, there is nothing offensive about this on face value but if you think about what he’s actually saying here it’s basically that our fans have unrealistic expectations and that “if they lived in the real world” they’d accept mid table league two as an acceptable performance.
Now, no club has any right to “expect” to be in any division. That is not the same as aspiring to something and failing. I went to my first game aged 5. In 25 years, previous to DCs reign I’ve seen us in this division once. So he’s absolutely right, historically I do expect us to be higher. BUT when you make out this unrealistic, or an unfair expectation I’m sorry but you are disrespecting that history. You are telling me, something I’ve seen, for the best part of 25 years, is unrealistic or unattainable. ■■■■ off.
I suspected this when he had the run in with a fan behind the dug out last season. I don’t know who was in the right or wrong there so I’m not going to comment on that, but that was my first suspicion he wasn’t that struck on us.
He took a lot of people in by swearing a bit and bleating on about his poor family and fair play to him. It’s very clever. But to be honest, as a bloke, from the way he speaks about fans, I have a very low opinion of him BEFORE you get to our ■■■■ poor, boring, negative performances.
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Other than that though I like him 
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Agreed Jimmy Shan is a very good call. Question is would he see us as a move up from Solihull Moors. Won’t happen anyway as we couldn’t afford to pay the Moors Compensation.
I have seen Jimmy Shan’s methods first hand - seriously impressive. Top draw coach.
Lee Carsley is someone else I have seen close up. Again, first class.
Both local lads.
■■■■ me, at the moment the pairing of my nephew and Darren Byfield would be better than what we have
Fat lot of good it did us with Merson playing for us did for us as well, opened the door to what happened afterwards…yay
I’m not usually one for negativity, and I always try and look for the positives in every performance - but having just watched all of the League Two goals on ‘EFL on Quest’, I doubt we’d have scored any of them had those chances fell to us!
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Apart from us the fans only person I feel sorry for is LP . Not exactly had a smooth path into chairmanship with Covid and now a manager who we all was glad and proud to see appointed ( Not the cheap option) showing to be useless and a team with no idea and seemingly starting to go backwards.
He will now be under pressure to wield the axe (even if he can not afford to)if the next three games end in defeat in my opinion.
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He’ll be gone if we don’t pick up four points from next three games in my opinion.
Sorry for him Gav??
He hasn’t got a clue how to run a lower league football club. Don’t even think he is at the club more than 1 day a week.
He’s delegated the running of the club to the same people who were running so badly previously under JB.
So you was unhappy when Clarke got the job and Covid was expected?
No mate. I thought at the time Clarke would do a good job. Same with Pomlett.
I was wrong on both counts.
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i am probablly like many on here who during the heat of the moment when you are either watching or listening to the match live you post something in reaction and end up saying something really sarcastic about Clarke. I will be the first to out my hands up to doing that.
As a Club at the moment the one thing that we desperatly need is a level of consitency and more importantly stability at all levels within the Club. This starts right down at the youth team level, developement, all the way through to the first team squad, players, coaches, manger and directors. So if we are going wrong at the moment then why? Is the general coaching at the Club part of the problem?
I have to be honest a say that i do not know a great deal about Dutton as a coach. I dont think he rocked any boats as a player as i believe a lot of his playing experience was in non-league. Obviously he has worked with Clarke before and Clarke trusts him. Not unsual for managers to take their assistants with them is it? Clarke obviously has his own strong views on how he sees teams should be coached, and their ability to adapt to various different systems. That’s fine if you are a Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, etc, but this is Walsall with players whom some of which are barely League Two standard. Dutton is probably not strong enough personality wise to tell Clarke any different.
At the end of the day Clarke is the one who is solely responsible for the developement of the squad, the recruitment and release of players, and more importantly the manner and style of play that the team produces on a Saturday afternoon. If players are not good enough or make mistakes then he has to bare the brunt of that criticism. After all if players are consistently making mistakes then that means that firstly they are either not good enough, or they don’t understand their roles and how to implement whatever system the manager has instructed them to carry out during the match. With Walsall at the moment it is probably a matter of both of the above. In which case shouldn’t Clarke realise this and just try to make thinks as simple as possible and just try to stick to one system or formation? Many on here can see this and have said so already.
Sir Ray did this with great success previously. The problem at the moment is that with the squad that Clarke has assembled it is difficult to see what our strengths are? Since Wes has lost his form and confidence then Clarke seems completely lost and devoid of any other ideas. Our improvement in form last season totally coincided with Wes hitting the heights with his play and scoring some fantastic goals. Now that form has gone then it is quite clear that this covered up a lot of Clarke’s weaknesses and faults. A bit like Ortzumer with Whitney, but then we all knew Whitney was not the man for the job.
The question is do we believe that Clarke is the one to help these payers either find any form or install belief within themselves? As much as i would like this to happen i just cant see it happening. Losing Marcus Stewart has clearly been a huge loss to the dynamic within the coaching side, particularly with our forwards who show no composure or confidence. There is also the issue that a lot of the balls that they feed off is poor with no quality. Again this has to be down to coaching.
Hence the question, what time should we be prepared to give Clarke? Hopefully with those injured now starting to come back over the next couple of weeks, but will this make a differnce? Losing Josh Gordonn has obviously been a loss but then he is not a prolific scorer either. I don’t think that we can pin much hope on new additions in January so the squad we have is what we are going to have to work with till the end of the season.
I for one, and as much as i want it to, can’t see Clarke turning this squad round into promotion contenders. We are simply not good enough. Too many years of lack of investment has finally come to haunt us. As much as i feel that Clarke has his faults he is not the ultimate reason for where we are. It all all goes back to Dean Smith’s replacement and the ultimate break up of that squad. We have taken the cheap option too many times, and as much as we want to blame Clarke for all of this, he unfortuntely is not the real culprit. I think we all know who that is!!
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Come on guys, it’s quite obvious what’s causing our mind numbing displays and total lack of awareness, creativity, flair, discipline etc it’s simply because " we ain’t gelled " yet.
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Agreed. When we do gel other teams need to watch out.