Oh absolutely. My point is it’s a bit unfair to say the “budget” hasn’t been spent in the right way when it’s pretty much par for the course. Then when you consider the size of said budget to other clubs I think par for the course is about all you can expect. Anything more than that is a bonus and a credit to the manager (which obviously Keates hasn’t managed).
I’m not saying for a moment that he’s played the market brilliantly and only picked out gems.
I agree that he hasn’t used them as well as he might have done. He started off ok with a plan of how to play but then seem to get confused either by some defeats or players like Martin influencing him.
I am more optimistic than some because over the past few games we seem to know what we are doing again and are competing well. Whether this is the O’Connor influence or simply the fact that our best 3 midfielders are fit and playing I am not too sure.
Regarding transfer fees, do we know roughly what we have paid then for Scarr, Gordon, Ferrier & Norman?
Ferrier was 35K, a release clause.
The rest are undisclosed. I read somewhere once that all fees paid to clubs regarding agents payments have to be undisclosed for the sake of privacy, but hey who knows, maybe it was a few K 
Yeah that’s what I thought, I doubt we were writing out big cheques for fees
He would need a budget to begin with to waste it!
Like I keep saying, Deano ain’t been backed in the slightest. Dean Smith was one manager in a hundred appointments - he got us out the ■■■■ with a ■■■■ poor squad then ripped up the club from top to bottom, focusing on youth development. Without that building the relative success 3 years later would not have been possible with Bonsers budgets - and that’s what every manager will now find. This is why we have spent so long in this league languishing in either mid table or near the relegation zone.
Football has moved on; when was the last time there was a fairytale Graydon story anywhere? Long standing league clubs are being replaced by forward thinking chairman at non-league clubs that are bank rolling the football side. Clubs that have established a connection with their fanbase.
You pay peanuts you get monkeys. Simple simple simple.
Yeah - I imagine the money we received for Bakayoko was used to pay for Gordon and Ferrier. Bit of a myth to say he’s been ‘backed’…
Of course he has been backed. We have sold players in the past and not replaced them. Come on, I’m as Bonser out as anyone but if you aren’t going to give credit where it is due then it just weakens your own argument of not being a Bonser fan.
He’s been backed about as much as any other Walsall manager. That doesn’t mean he’s been backed to the tune of a club that is expecting to build for the Championship (which is apparently their aim) or even finish mid table.
The fact that this is seen as being “backed” is a sign of how well the club have driven fan expectations down. It doesn’t matter if he’s been backed compared to other Walsall managers, have a look at our competition.
Correct, but that’s not what anybody is saying (apart from the club, who are not commenting on this thread) so disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing (again) can stop here.
Well so is the rest of it where I said: not to the tune of a mid table team even. So if being “backed” means given a budget to just about stay in this league then I agree, he has been. If you expect more, or think we should expect more, I disagree
Like I say, if you find that acceptable then you are an example of how well they have driven expectations down.
Oh sorry I thought we were talking about trying to get into the Championship - after all, that is the mission statement rolled out by the suits every year!
I agree, Keates has been backed as much as any other manager in the last 15 years, what I am saying is football has moved on and with the budget we have, all we can expect is this year upon year, if not worse - while more progressive clubs further down the pyramid continue to close the gap. I don’t care who is in charge - lower League One or League Two is the height of what we can expect! How sad.
Who would have thought that Solihull Moors (a merger of Solihull Borough & Moor Green because both clubs could not survive on crowds of 200) could more than likely be in our division next year! Amazing what a bit of foresight, passion and good money on players can do! Conceivably we could soon be the 6th lowest ranking league club in the West Midlands…
That’s fair - I think it’s probably right to say that Keates has been backed as well (probably better) than his predecessors, but in the context of elsewhere in League One it’s still a fairly meagre budget.
I just wish this kind of resource was given out to Smith during his first couple of years at the club. That 15/16 season might have come a lot earlier…
Yet more evidence today that he clearly isn’t and is failing to learn anything about game management, despite repeatedly being shown up for lack of it.
He’s ■■■■.
Keates has to go. I don’t come at me with “but the opposition blah blah blah” … I use context to form my opinions and in the context of that game Keates has ■■■■■■ up big style. Substitutions (or lack of) have cost us today. Awful game management in what was a very good display.
■■■■■■■ depressing.
If you were on Twitter, I’d block you…
I am, block me then
The light bulb is more like a candle…
You’ve got to give him some credit for today because the team was set up really well and we more than matched a top two side from the get go.
His “rabbit in headlights”in-game management is an issue all Wrexham fans warned of and this, together with a four month meltdown, a confused transfer window strategy and a goalie that has barely won us a point has cost us our third tier status.
For a Walsall Manager, he has been backed reasonably well. He just hasn’t been good enough.
As I say further up the thread though, I’d give him and Martin a crack at the fourth division.