Part Two of our interview with Isaac Hutchinson is now here!
Hutch lifts the lid on his exit from the club, and what happened with his contract. He also discusses the key figures in the dressing room, the detailed way the coaching staff work with players and how important the signings of Josh Gordon and Dave Okagbue are to the squad.
He also names his Walsall XI and answers listener questions.
Particularly interesting for me in this episode were :-
The roles of the coaching staff. It seems Waddock and Byfield very much play good cop / bad cop with Hutch leading me to believe that Waddock was always there when he needed to deliver a kick up the @rse whereas Byfield took care of post game analysis preparing and going through clips of the game and dealing with the positives.
This level of detail isn’t always appreciated by fans….”what does X do he seems to just sit there in games and say nothing” was a common comment on here.
The analysis post game for individuals and for the team are clearly very detailed and important and form the framework of the following weeks work in preparation for improvements.
Interesting that he has Kinsella and Comley in his best 11……and confirmation that he never really played as a 10 while at Walsall with the formation being one where he was one of two CMs with only one defensive player rather than being a 10 with two holding players behind him.
Most interesting was just how focussed on Walsall he was. He was never leaving in January and specifically asked his agent to NOT contact him from January through to the end of season, regardless of possible interest / rumours, in order to not have any distractions until Walsall’s season was concluded one way or another. His preference was always to play in League 1 but his aim, or preference, was always for that to be with Walsall.
Yes, I have noticed that players often pick their “best” elevens that jar with the views of supporters. I suppose he wanted two holding players.
I am struck by most of the recent interviewees who say how happy players are at Bescot. Maybe they are being polite but it does seem to be quite different on the inside from how many supporters see it from outside.
He speaks about DJ at some length but does not really reveal much. According to him, DJ was training well all season and was just left out but we know that isn’t true because he had some leave around the birth of his child and afterwards. I guess there might be confidentiality issues that he is right to respect.
Thanks for doing this. It is great that ex-players give so much time.
How does that make it “not true”? Having leave, and not applying yourself in training are completely separate things. Everyone at some point in their life has had leave for one reason or another, that isn’t discounted from your performance.
It’s wild what fans will make up in their own head.
I think it was you who said this before (maybe not I can be forgetful)
But the timeline is wrong, right? He had the leave during the preseason last season. Started the season, and was dropped for the Colchester game I think it was. It was pretty clear he was dropped, for whatever reason.
The DJ situation was one he was hesitant to talk about, you could tell by his voice and repetition of phrases. He did mention sometimes you don’t fit the managers plans.
I was also surprised he picked DJ and Faal…no room for Freddie.
Yeah preseason. But also, as I just said, taking granted leave and not applying yourself/performing well are not the same thing.
I know fans just decided he couldn’t be arsed, and used it to back Sadler’s decision, but that is two players now who have basically just said it was tactical (which is fair enough, whether you disagree or not. Sadler is the manager and will be judged on those decisions) and that Johnson worked hard in training and simply wasn’t picked (as well as the player himself).
If he had troubles off the pitch it would effect him, however hard he tried. Jamma said something similar last season about himself. I am not doubting DJ’s commitment but I just think that there might be an alternative to the usual “Sadler does not like DJ” narrative. I’d like to see him back in the team.
Not in question. To what degree none of us will ever or should ever know. I refuted that “we know it’s not true” he trained well all season, despite multiple players saying that was the case.
