Yeah, that’s the general consensus so far. ■■■■ squad, ■■■■ dempoyment?
Players goto take 100% blame today, Errors and total ■■■■ quality…All tho norman and gordon coming isnt really subs that are gunna turn a game are they
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Zak Jules is a great signing imo, he certainly won’t be playing in league two next season.
Guthrie is brains of midfield but he’s going to miss a big chunk of games, that’s the risk that was taken I’m afraid.
Wes McDonald could be a gem. Typical winger in you think he’s done the hard work but then his cross hits the first man or he does one too many stepovers. Still there is potential for this level.
Sincs is loved by fans, can get in the box and nick the odd goal and seems to be the one furthest forward to press. He shouldn’t play with Kins/Liddle though as it’s too similar in style.
Gaffney held it up o.k today in first half. Not sure though whether 4-3-3 is best formation for him, think he’d work better with Lavery long term.
J. Clarke had a shocker for second but overall take out his goals and club would barely be above Stevenage…
I agree someone like Liddle is pretty bad at this stage of his career. He’s just a stopper at full back and will barely get over halfway line so that means all the counter attacks came down just one side.
Didn’t see much of Holden at all and already it’s a headscratcher why on earth Facey was signed, when did he last even make the bench?
So given that’s pretty much all summer signings imo some good players (for this level) have been signed but think they’re getting bogged down by overall malaise of the club. The balance still isn’t there, more defensive minded in nature which is fine if you’re hanging onto a 1-0 with ten minutes left but you get found out if you lose two quick goals as happened today as the response was pathetic.
Simply not enough goals in this squad and also no one in midfield to pass forward quickly once Guthrie went off.
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Agree with most of that mate… But can’t help thinking that Guthrie could have done so much more to get himself in shape for the season. It’s obvious just looking at him that he is likely to pick up injuries. HE’S 32 not 37should take leaf out of Chambers book instead of going down London to do his punditry work for sky. He could make all the difference to us if he gets himself in shape.
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Clarke has not given Hardy and Bates much of a chance yet to establish themselves as creative midfielders.
I am backing the manager, but did not like his comments about getting new players in January. Dean Keates tried that earlier this year and it did not end well.
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Great post SHQ.
If history is any indicator, our best sides over the years have had a decent smattering of talent that we have developed to a point where they are better than the level the first team is playing at.
We can’t afford to buy that sort of talent so we always need to supplement our own talent with mis-shapes, misfits and unrealised potential.
The trouble with this team is that our production line has been managed to a stall in recent years and Clarke can’t get his signings to look anything other than the mis-shaped, mid-fits and unrealised potential they were when they arrived.
There is hope though. Korey Roberts, Alfie Bates and Liam Kinsella. I’d also stretch that to Mitch Candlin who I hope is finding his mojo again after a couple of tricky years.
If these lads grow and a few of the signings click then you never know.
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There’s a difference between steadying the ship and presiding over this pile of crud. We deserve more than this.
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If ever there was a post clutching at straws that is it , and believe me I really, really wish you were right, but let’s all get it out in the open , this set of players have been identified and signed by Clarke and Pomlett , even if the budget is not massive the majority of these players are not good enough .
I strongly believe that there were far better players available for the money we must be paying , unfortunately that can only sit at one person’s door .
This squad has very little pace and lacks physical strength which at this level are the minimum requirements throw in the obvious lack of quality then it’s not difficult to see the problems.
At no time even in the games we have won have we actually looked like a team with a plan , for those of us who have actually watched the games in all honesty I’m sure you must agree that we could have just as easily have lost them .
Let me be clear I really wanted DC to be a success and I suppose it’s still possible , but please let’s be honest this is the worst Walsall team for years and he has brought most of them in .
As regards changing the manager, I really don’t know if that’s the answer , but what I do know is , is that he must improve the quality of players he brings in.
We are fortunate this season that basically we have a free hit regards being relegated due to the Bury situation , but boy do we need to see some sort of improvement .
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Isn’t that a problem likely to be compounded by his demand for all his players to be versatile? If they’re that versatile, and playing at this level, it’s likely don’t actually excel at anything they do. Is versatility an unnecessary luxury just to enable the manager to change things repeatedly?
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I think we need to give up on the idea that Kinsella is a talent, he really isn’t.
Hes as much the problem as the others.
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Reflecting on the summer, it’s really difficult to understand how we failed to bring in at the very least 2/3 quality attacking players!
The budget had to be there purely based on outgoings, or was simply a case of bad management?
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In my opinion, Clarke is to blame. He brought in these players and for whatever reason - tactics, quality etc, they aren’t performing. As much as fans like to hear honesty from Clarke in his interviews, I don’t think criticising players and threatening to ship them out is the best way to motivate them. Although players aren’t named publicly they probably get told privately so they know who he is talking about. Keates did something similar when talking about getting rid of players he had inherited and it didn’t help much. The worrying thing for me is that we have to wait until January to change things and then we have to hope he makes better signings than these. In the meantime we will have to suffer more results like these and hope we don’t get stuck too near to the bottom.
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So so many people could see that these players were not good enough a long time before the window shut why is it the people who make the decisions and are able to put this right don’t see what we see or see it too late it’s very frustrating
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Absolutely agree with this , we went to the Notts County friendly it was blatantly obvious that most of the players Clarke had brought in were not good enough.
The minimum requirement at this level is pace and strength both of which are in short supply in this squad.
Regards the budget what ever it is , as I’ve said before on here it has been spread to thinly bringing in quantity not quality, surely it would have been better to bring in 4/5 better players and supplement it with some of our younger lads because if they aren’t at least as good as some of these then we may as well scrap the youth system as well and plough any savings into the budget.
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Seems to me that he’s doing the same things as both Whitney, and Keates were doing - constantly changing formation/team, digging players out in public, saying he’ll be ruthless and banging on about passion and commitment, with the same results.
Maybe all 3 were better than they were allowed to be by the shambles behind the scenes. Or maybe they’re just as bad a each other? Which one is it?
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I don’t believe it’s anything to do with the behind the scenes situation, it’s already been said by the Chairman that he has signed every player he’s been asked to.
It’s just plain and simple poor recruitment , there has to be better players than this lot whatever the budget is
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He obviously watched countless DVDs of last season when appointed and concluded the defensive structure was a shambles so signed some defenders.
Probably too many of them though. I agree I went to Tranmere for last pre season and there were hardly any good attacks and chronic lack of forward thinking players.
Don’t understand the signing of Facey either. He came with a solid CV, regular at this level last season etc but can’t even make the bench. That is waste of budget given Norman is contracted for another two years.
Absolutely agree - it was a clutching at straws post by me.
The straws are all we have left. I’m trying to muster some hope for the 20’s based upon those straws. But as you say, it is mighty brittle and no sign of anything like a foundation from where to build yet. As I say elsewhere we shouldn’t dismiss the prospect of needing to build from non-league so brittle are my straws of hope.
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I am pretty sure Facey is injured?
Someone mentioned the constant tinkering in the match thread, and this becoming an issue for me.
The Dicky Dosh team demonstrated that square pegs in square holes, with a settled, consistent shape, gets you out of this league. There may be an argument that football at the 4th tier level has changed a lot since then, but I haven’t seen any opposition so far that has made me think we needed to radically compromise in order to contain them. I’m sure there’d be few arguments that- for example- Cameron Norman isn’t a world beater, but I’m not entirely sure what he’s done wrong that necessitates Liddle being shoe-horned in at right-back every other week: round peg, square hole.
On the subject of the opposition being hardly-insurmountable, and considering our general lack of potency in the final third, I’d also struggle for reasons why we haven’t omitted a defensive minded player- or indeed one of the front two, or Holden- and tried to accommodate Guthrie, McDonald, and Hardy in the same starting XI, for a run of games… surely Sinclair protecting any 4/5 of our myriad defenders should be caution aplenty against some ultimately limited (as are we, I hasten to add) opposition.
I also appreciate why DC doesn’t want to expose Alfie Bates, and to a much lesser extent Hardy, to too much, too soon, but surely interchanging between the two during the 50% of the time that Guthrie seemingly can’t manage, gives us much more opportunity to get our noses in front/kill off games/half a chance of an equalizer, than the default triad of Sinclair/Kinsella/Liddle does?!
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