Is Keates Good Enough?

Agree but take the centre of the park we now have … on the books , Chambers , Edwards , Kinsella , Osbourne and Dobson.

Granted 2 have been injured , but I can never remember having 5 players for 2 positions. Especially signed to the club and not loaned.

Keates is not good enough. His signings are largely awful, he has no clear philosophy or identity on how his team want to play, he does nothing in game to identify or address problems and he looks like he has no people or motivational skills whatsoever.

What does he actually do in game other than scribble in a pad? He must have drawn some lovely pictures this season while on the touchline. The bloke is literally desperate now - throwing in anyone for a game in the vague hope it clicks.

Other than that he’s great.

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Come on mate, its Valentines Day tomorrow, have a heart.

Thanks for the reminder, Ill get them to put a pink ribbon round the chip paper.

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It’s ok,don’t worry,just seen this on E&S site…we’re saved.

https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/walsall-fc/2019/02/12/scott-laird-adamant-walsall-will-stay-up/

That was before last night!!!

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To be fair to him we needed to sign a central midfielder at the start of the season because Chambers and Edwards were long term injured. The fact we have 5 now doesn’t mean anything with Chambers still out, his career may well be done.

You need two players for each position so I’m not going to criticise him for reinforcing an area that was threadbare at the start of the season. Even if it was with Isiah Osbourne.

Note that it’s past the deadline time this morning, and no announcement, so, it looks as if we are stuck with Keates to take us into the 4th Division.
Good management eh?

I presume from the puff piece thats appeared, zero triggers will be pulled today.

I for one am gutted that this appointment seemingly hasn’t worked. Be it the budget, be it Keates’ inexperience (for what it’s worth I think it’s an amalgamation of these two factors) I am gutted. Almost feels like appointing Keates was a final throw of the dice. My head says we’re going down, my heart says we’ll just about stay up and fortunes may change next season. Regardless of the permeatations, and forgive me for repeating myself - I am gutted. UTS

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Whitney was unlucky, I don’t think the board wanted to give him the chance… If they’d have given him the job instead of O’Driscoll then we may have been promoted that season and kept the likes of Sawyers, Forde, Bradshaw and maybe Henry to have a go at the Championship. The form when he was given the job was good enough. To rebuild a squad after it’s been ripped apart after playoff heartbreak is a difficult ask.

Keates has had it easy in comparison. All he had to do is get us playing OK and win a few games to keep us out of a relegation scrap, at the start it looked good and it all turned sour. To have such a turning point in the season asks to many questions for me, and it’s not like we started with an easy set of fixtures. People will say, in the summer what was the expectation… Yeah probably a relegation scrap like we’re in but I guess this was upped by the early success and positive start to the season, and I guess that hasn’t helped him with fans judgement of him.

You just can’t free-fall with no explanation, I could understand if we’d had a repeat of the last minute mid season sales of Dann and Fox… Yes we sold Ginnelly but I’m led to believe Keates agreed to that as he wanted Jarvis in (which is backed up by how quick the signing was done).

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Haven’t posted for a while and are quite amazed at some of the hypocrisy I read, now the tide has turned (as we look to be drowning very quickly into League 2)

I said in the Summer that recruitment should be minimal; a season of transition where the budget is spent on a handful of key players, not used to fill the bench with journeymen and unproven kids from other Clubs, who also block the pathway of our “own”. At the same time, we persevere with a number of “Witney’s 2 years deals,” until there could be a proper clear out in the Summer of [2019.] Whilst some Posters live in a dream world, wanting 2 senior pros for every positon or signing triallists on the basis of one match (who then consequently fail to find a league club) I was always adamant that the budget should be spread thickly, to actually improve the team – rather than simply balk out the squad.

Whilst others were promoting the merits of our defence early this season, I said on countless occasions that this was the same back four who were consistently so poor the previous season – and at some stage this campaign, reality would hit – and they would be found out.

Finally I was keen to stick to a single formation – as Sir Ray always said, switching things around at “our level” only gives the players excuses. Consistency and continuity always meant you could take a player out if required – and he is replaced with someone who knows exactly what they should be doing.

19 Players later and we have a bloated squad of a very poor standard. As another Poster referred to, with the exception of Andy Cook, how many of the other 18 signings have been a success? The failure to improve key areas of the team particularly at centre half, where Scarr is now the 4th attempt to find someone decent, is incredible. As for our own kids, well they are so far down the pecking order, it appears their careers are finished.

What concerns me the most however has been the change of system. Early doors with the 4-4-2 everyone knew their job. Top 6 was never going to last but we were a threat going forward and were slightly better defensively (although still fairly poor) After a couple of dodgy results, it was decided that Connor Ronan was the answer to our prayers; an unproven player at League 1 level who couldn’t play in a midfield 2 – and in order to incorporate him, we should change the way we play. I recall a certain Poster claiming we should never play 4-4-2 again just to fit him in! That decision I believe was the biggest mistake Keates has made; ever since, the system has chopped and changed and confidence is shot – no-one know what they are supposed to be doing and it clearly shows. There is no consistency in our play and it does have that smell of the Merson era, where formations and team selections seemed to happen at random.

There can be no defence of Keates; he has been a disaster in the transfer market. Tactically he is inept asking far too much of League 1 players (and very poor League 1 players at that) with regards flexibility and adapting to ever changingsystems; and one would have to suggest, he is completely out of his own depth, with regards thinking he has the ability to tinker in the first place.

You can bang the Bonser drum as loud as you want; but when Hutchings, Mullen, O’Driscoll and Witney were hounded out the Club, no one could find that drum then. Keates has displayed no aptitude for any of the qualities which make evena reasonable football manager. He should have been sacked this morning.

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My hope is that bonser is out of the country and will attend to the matter as soon as he’s back. It needs to be quick, otherwise we’re going down with barely a whimper.

Top post, respect👍

Good post…you have set out in one post a number of issues I have commented on over the season.Your second and fourth paragraphs are spot on…indeed last night I was reminding my mates of Graydon’s views on different systems at this level, His comments as I recall hearing him say were somewhat blunter in that he felt that players at this level were simply not bright enough to play different systems.

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He wasn’t there last night.

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He’s in the country too

So you basically said what every other reasonable poster has said in one way or another.

Well done you.

I agree that the key decision to abandon 442 was a big mistake by Keates, but do not think that Keates did this in order to accommodate Ronan. I would suggest that it just happened to coincide with his arrival at the start of September.

Ronan was not a first choice for league games, he started against Barnsley on 8th September replacing Kinsella when he was on international duty, and didn’t get another league start until 23 October. During his entire time at the club Ronan only started 4 of the 21 league games, so is probably not the main reason why Keates decided to stop playing 442.

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Agreed, typical from our Board, either haven’t got the courage, or cant afford to do it, as our beloved team slips relentlessly towards relegation. Our squad needs leadership, someone with nous and authority that will sort out this mess…do it Bonser, do it now!
Love the club legend, but like Whitney, he is no manager of a 3rd Division football team! Take his useless backroom staff with him, it will save Bonser a bob or two for starters!

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