Grimsby Town (H) March 8th, kick-off 12.30pm

No, I think bringing him on with 30 seconds of normal time left is a much better tactic!!!:person_facepalming:

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There are only two things that smell of fish…and one of them is fish! My girlfriend said to me: kiss me where it smells of fish, so I took her to Grimsby!!

I think since Lowe left we’ve missed a trick by not trying 4-3-1-2.
Unc, Jellis, and now Harrison could all play as the “1” with Matt and DJ up front. That would be a handfull for defences in this league. If Jellis is further up bring one of the new lads in alongside Stirk and Lakin, or play Allen there. Barrett and Gordon can still supply a bit of width from full-back. I think theres a lot of natural rotation, particularly “in game” with this squad and that formation which would make us much less predictable and easy to set up against, especially at home.

Like a lot of things, likely never going to happen though!

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Can you take over for the run in mate, you make more sense than Sadlers same old.

He really doesn’t help himself !

Stubborn to the point of losing sight of reality and common sense……

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Sadler thinks that he is not being stubborn. He is looking back at the fantastic run of results he achieved this season, culminating with 9 straight wins and a 13 point lead at the top of the table.

The system that he used, and the players he sent out, worked so well that he believes that trying to reproduce that as closely as possible is the best of all the options available to him.

He thinks we are just experiencing a blip, with a bit of bad luck here and there, and that we will soon go back to winning ways. I hope he is right.

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We are not asking for wholesale changes, but having a Plan B might come in handy if we are say 1-0 down with 10 minutes to go. And, if we were winning every game, then yes, don’t change a winning team. But when we look suspect at the back and toothless in attack, most of us can identify two immediate changes that might make a difference. I’m surprised that Sadler can’t!

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I agree Bernie but if the next 2 matches continue the blip I think he will have to change for the final run in. With the Gillingham match like to be off he will have 16 days to rethink.

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I think he caught a dose of jitters when he rotated against Bromley and nearly got turned over. However a more confident and experienced manager would have took that in his stride, looked at the cup games when the wider squad - in particular the likes of Weir and DJ came to the fore, that was a much more reliable body of work, backed up in spades with the various cameos in the league games for example 4 goals from DJ including the point savers against Salford and the winner against Bradford - how crucial are those 3 extra points looking??

Also he hasn’t hesitated to play first Wheatley and then Amantchi…based on what exactly? Playing Unc up-front ahead of 3 strikers he himself signed (4 if you include Cleary) is just plain weird. One of the greatest goal-assist players in recent EFL history, and he’s hardly ever been deployed in a position best suited to assist. And if he thinks he’s used Matt wisely recently…really?, and if Gordon was fit he’d be a shoe-in.

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Can those who are more tactically aware let me know if Sadler has ever changed from 352 during a match, in order to respond to the opposition set-up or just to try something different?

10 points in 10 games is no blip in most folks opinion and it’s certainly not enough to maintain a promotion push with 11 games of the season to go….

He needs to accept that what worked when on that great run is no longer working.

We’ve stopped scoring goals (enough goals)

We’re conceding more goals

Teams are finding it easier to stop us playing how we used to

Oh and the players are totally knackered

If he can’t see the above then I just don’t know what we’re gonna do!

Hopefully we’ll smash the fish 5-0 and this post will become a laughably moot point… :crossed_fingers:

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I tend to agree with you @WalsallOne there may come a point where he has no choice but to change it but even if that’s the case he will probably only make minimal change rather than wholesale ones.
We are top of the table (for now) and aside from Bradford the chasing pack do appear to be tripping themselves up as seen on Tuesday night which is obviously in our favour.
The biggest frustration for me is how long he leaves it before making substitutions, Cheltenham being one example.
The other thing that frustrates me is the situation with DJ who for me is the one player that ought to be getting more minutes than he is. I actually feel sorry for him and it’s to his credit that when he does get a few minutes he looks like someone chomping at the bit to get involved.

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Yes well I agree with you. DJ should have come on at HT on Tuesday. Carlisle had little to offer and all we needed was someone to put the ball in the net!

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No dicking around Mat tomorrow. Be positive and go for it. None of the conservative option of Uncs up front. Give DJ his chance. Worst case scenario and things aren’t going right, bring him on a lot earlier than the usual 5/10 mins that you give him. A win is badly needed to put pressure on the teams directly below us. Panicking isn’t the word atm, but the fans are rightly anxious about us blowing this opportunity.

Don’t blow this!!

UTS

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You are getting there @Coop63. You’ll soon see the big picture. :wink:

@Saddlertd He didn’t even have a plan A last season. He’s stumbled along to a Plan
a that worked for a while. You’ve got no chance of a plan b !!

I’m normally a very positive and constructive individual but positions like the one we found ourselves in January are very rare as a Walsall fan so my patience with MS is starting to be stretched (no pun intended!)

I fully accept good runs come to an end and better teams eventually unpick winning formulas but it’s the unwillingness to accept that things need to change when the situation dictates that’s really frustrating…

He’s the manager not me (or any of us) but surely he can see the need to get things back on track as we approach the last 10 games of what in all honesty should be a promotion, if not title winning season…

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3-1 win tomorrow for me, Just like when we was on 9 game winning streak we wasn’t quite as good as we thought equally we are not as bad as we think we are at the moment.

Get Harry back in and i think we see a huge difference at the back, Confidence is massive 1 good win and performance to match and we are back on track.

I know there’s a lot of negativity about at the moment from, Sadler,January,DJ,Trivela, but lets park that for now we can’t change that it’s out of our control. Leave that for the after season post mortem, All we can do is get behind the lads, be loud be proud, if things go wrong stick with them. Come the end of the season our support and backing could be worth a couple of points which could be the difference between promotion and heartbreak. UTS

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We’ve got STUBBORN Matty Sadler, he’s really not sure what to do… suspect at the back, toothless in attack, Walsall have thrown away a substantial lead :rofl: its laugh or :cry: so I went for the former…

I am afraid that I can’t see anything better than a draw (again). I’m not sure where our next win is coming from.
The only hope is that we can step it up against the better teams in the league - which is an odd thing to say given we’re top!

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