In regards to Keates, my view is the same as Whitney. There must be major improvement early on in his second season or he should be replaced in time for a new manager to improve the season (2019/2020)
I agree with those who say he has been no better than Whitney over the course of his tenure to date.
This could lead to an argument that suggests that it is impossible for anyone to succeed at Walsall given the constraints.
The key ingredient for success as I see it is certainty. Certainty in the type of characters you want around the place, certainty in how you manage those players on and off the pitch and certainty in the way you play the game. Nicholl, Graydon and Smith had this is bucketloads.
With those three it was about signings that fitted both in terms of character and ability. It was similarly about releasing players who couldn’t tick both boxes. It was about a belief in the way the game should be played. And it was about sticking to those things even after a poor result or twelve.
The managers who have struggled are those who are flakey and uncertain. So you end up with a team containing Oztumer playing long balls to “beat the press”. A team with full backs who were signed as wing backs and therefore struggle to do the orthodox full back stuff. And going back a bit you end up with “banter table” shenanigans, or all day drinking sessions where those who don’t partake are ostracised.
The strange thing with Keates is that at the start of the season it appeared as though we had that kind of certainty. We would play a certain way and be a certain way. You had that sense of certainty and direction and it felt so much better. Not promotion better but certainly better.
To my mind he lost confidence. He needed the boost of someone he trusted to come in and support him but the Russell Martin fiasco probably dented his confidence even more. This led to muddled selections, formations and a pebble dash approach to the transfer window. It is telling that things feel much calmer, calibrated and better since that trusted lieutenant came in a few weeks ago.
I believe it is now too late to prevent relegation but my head has now moved to giving Keates and O’Connor a decent crack at the fourth division because it all feels a bit more certain and focussed since they were paired up.
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No he’s not
Depends what the question is:
Is Keates good enough to keep us up? I think so. I can see us getting results to stay in this division based on recent performances, Barnsley accepted. Which many people saw as a realistic aim at the start of the season.
Is Keates good enough to push us on past that next season? Probably not.
Would any manager be considering the way the club operates? Yeah, but you are looking for a needle in a haystack. One manager has managed to progress this club in over a decade.
The long term aim for this club is supposedly the Championship. One manager has managed it and one would have done. That is in the past 29 years.
So no Keates probably isn’t good enough to do that, but it’s largely irrelevant because he, or any other manager, shouldn’t be dealt the hand they are being given anyway if that is a genuine aim.
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Good post but I think Martin was largely the cause of the loss of confidence. He had different ideas on how to play the game and from then on we went into a spiral of losing.then losing more confidence,then losing again etc. Where I do agree strongly with you is that things have calmed down recently and we now look as if we know what we are doing. Enough to save us from the drop? I think so!!!
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I agree PT - in fact exactly what I’ve said in other posts…
No doubt in my mind that the Russell Martin episode completely poleaxed DK, the team/squad work ethic seemed affected and the entire playing strategy suffered as a result…
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Nice one.
And would you therefore agree that he should be given a shot next season rather than pot him when we are relegated?
Personally I’d stick with him for this season (relegation or not)
We can’t keep toying with this idea that L1 is our given place in things with the meagre budgets at our disposal (controversial maybe…)
If we go down then DK should be the manager to get us out of L2 - if things don’t work out by December he’ll be gone…
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Bonzo isn’t going to be paying out on another contract like he did with JW, that would mean having to pay three managers wages. So like it or not we will have Deano in charge be it in league one or two.
I’d like to see him try to take us back up but when someone the other day said ‘I don’t want him to waste another budget’ then I sort of do question him. He has wasted funds. So not only does his in-game management seem ■■■■, his eye for a player does too. That said, I would give him the chance if I was chairman. But one bad run and he’d be gone. We can’t afford to drop to League Two and still have a losing mentality or we could find ourselves fighting to stay in the Football League within a year or two.
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It has happened to bigger clubs than us 
Bit harsh to say he’s wasted a budget. He’s got about a 50/50 success rate. About what you expect on our budget.
Can’t deny some of his decisions are questionable though.
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I think it’s certain, DK will be gaffer next season. The only person who can stop him from managing WFC next season is Dean Keates. If he get offer at another club, he will go, but it’s rather unlikely. Squad for the League Two is nearly completed, only midfield left. And league below would be a good place to improve game management skills, players management, maybe even budget management too.
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I agree. But he obviously needs O’Connor. If Martin wasn’t up for sticking around I’d have serious concerns over Keates ability to do it without him.
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The biggest limiter on our club isn’t the manager, it’s the budget. It’s not fair to expect any manager to succeed in meeting the club’s stated aim of championship football and judge them by that criteria without considering this.
DK seems to be just about coping, and recent form following MOC’s return has given us a glimmer of hope, but right now survival is the best outcome under any manager that will (a) work for us and (b) be affordable.
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I wonder what the expectations will be next season if we are in Div4. Last time I had a wedge on us to win the league at 14/1 which was a crazy price. At that time we had a league 1 squad and it felt like Boner wanted to get out and backed the manager, relatively speaking. If I recall, the relegated teams all came back up that season (or certainly most of them).
I would not have the same confidence this time around.
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Well to be fair JB has backed DK this season. Just look at the payers signed…we even paid fees for 4 of them. I think there were 8 signings in January alone but how many of those are playing?
If we go down it will be because the Manager has not spent the budget in the right way. Where the Club is culpable is that they allowed JW to dish out 2 year deals to a large number of younger players which don’t expire until the end of this season. Presumably that money will be available next season.
Yes, fair point and I wasn’t saying that he hadn’t been given funds. My point really was that if we are relegated and fans expect an immediate bounce back like last time, then they may well be disappointed.
We even paid (undisclosed, probably agents fees) fees for 4 players sums up the level of backing you can expect to receive as a Walsall manager.
If I’m looking at signings that haven’t worked out I’ve got Martin, Osbourne and maybe Norman. I doubted Scarr but he’s been a lot better lately. Cook undisputed success. Ismail is very polarising but offers something nobody else in the whole squad does. Ferrier chips in the odd goal. Gordon looks a prospect and has grown all season, his workrate is phenomenal. And the loan market has been as hit and miss as it always is.
If we go down it will be because of the way the manager has used those players rather than how he has spent the money in my opinion.
Fair points made there el-n but I think it’s fair to say that I doubt there’s a manager in any of the leagues who’s stats on signings wont reflect positives/negatives and successes/failures over their time spent at the respective club…
I guess the debate is as you suggest - how the manager utilises the resources available to him (whether existing and/or new…)
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