Expectations for next season? Piss the league and have promotion nicely wrapped up with a few games to spare. May as well enjoy dreaming until the season starts.
For balance, I also expect us to lose in an embarrassing style away to some tinpot outfit and for everyone to collectively lose their shit, with demands for refunds on season tickets and queries about Sadler selling property.
Josh Gordon will score a goal and create a fracture in reality such as it’s impact.
The Liam Kinsella debate will again float up like a non flushing Mersey trout after he plays a blinder against us.
For me it’s looking like mid-table again. It’s looking like we’ll be scoring fewer goals but also conceding fewer too, which leaves us in pretty much the same place that we were.
This season looks like one of those where a good run of 10 games will mean a push up the right end of the table and a bad run of 10 games will leave you looking over your shoulder.
I’m hopeful that the midfield might be a bit more balanced, solid and better at moving the ball forward.
The defence with some luck with injuries should do better then last season.
Goalkeeper is unknown but based on last seasons loans it could be a great one.
The strike force is the worry, unless we can utilise DJ and maybe this midfield will be better for him and giving him the ball in the right positions. Goals were a problem last year , especially when we scored almost 10% of our league goals in one game against Grimsby.
I have no idea where this team will end up… Somewhere between 3rd and 13th I reckon.
I hope we do better this season. Although I think that Sadler was the wrong appointment, he desperately wants the club to succeed and achieve promotion.
What has changed to make us think that can be bettered
A more settled squad coached by the same manager is normally a good sign … but we still went away to Mk and Wilbledon late on and got hammered like we did early doors … can’t hang our hat on us “improving” under Sadler
On the flip side we have lost Hutchinson. That’s the big unknown, how we cope without him. I think Sadler will play in a way that means we don’t need a like for like replacement, but we shall see.
You are right Mk dons was unacceptable, Sadler got that wrong. Think we were a bit unlucky to get hammered at Wimbledon
There’s a month left and i expect a couple of additions but i think Sadler has the spine of the team he wants and its worse then last season, the new keeper is highly rated but unproven and is a massive gamble, Hutch will be a massive miss having an actual right back for the first time in 2 years is a bonus, but this shows how low we have sunk that I’m excited about
We’re gonna have Stirk and Comley in midfield which doesn’t work. We’ll have Okagbue on the right of a back 3 where it doesn’t suit and we’ll have a front 2 of Matt and Gordon (29 Walsall goals from 179 Walsall appearances)
I can’t be bothered to go through and look how many times they played together. I had a quick look and 5 of the the last 6 games of the season he started them both then I got bored.
To me, they seemed to be his go to last season when fit.
It’s hard not to agree that we are weaker than last season. At the end of last season, we had two of our own goalkeepers, one of the best creative midfielders in League 2, a striker on loan from a Championship club who was starting to score regularly and 5 or 6 more players in the 1st team squad.
The present recruitment leaves us well short of last season, so far. We are being told to “trust the process” but it does scream: BUDGET CUT so far. It does seem like previous seasons pre-Trivela, where we are waiting to pick up the scraps: are we back to the days of having 10 triallists in pre-season, most of whom are nowhere near good enough and just a waste of time? We’ll find out tomorrow.
In short: we are behind where we were this time last season; there is much work left to be done to make us a top 7 side!
