Why don’t Walsall make an agreement with local clubs to have first choice for loans and out of contact local young players from Villa, Wolves, West Brom, Blues, Coventry and Stoke.
Walsall could be the fall back option for youngsters at ‘’bigger local clubs who can’t get a game.
On the flip side if we have any talent then local clubs have first option to purchase (Rico, Deeney, Dann, etc)
Is this possible?
Always up to the player at the end of the day and not sure how many we’d tempt at the moment.
Wouldn’t this be almost like admitting we are small and useless and should just be a feeder club for the Big Boys? Not for me thanks.
Wouldn’t it be like becoming a colt/feeder club to someone else rather than being our own boss?
Can anyone else spot a flaw in the plan? 
As for loans, I think Rushworth and Bennett were both good for us and we were good for them, but I’m not sure how many others have worked in recent years, for us, the player or the loaning club.
I think we need a complete overhaul of the club, and I’m not sure this is the right way to do it. If WFC become a good club then young players will want to sign for us and big teams will want us to take their best players on loan, but at the moment we are a shambles and are treading water.
Anyway as @DanG_WFC says, “first choice” means nothing if the players don’t want to come here, or our emerging talent (I can dream, can’t I?) wants to go to a club outside the West Mids.
We’ve signed plenty of very good players over the years from our local rivals because we were an attractive club to come to. We need to make ourselves into an attractive destination again.
Suspect we have burnt our bridges with Birmingham City after loaning players from them and not using them.
We have to start to rebuild those bridges. It’s not impossible by any means.
That was one of the great things that Dean Smith did. We had a good style of play and he took care of the players we had on loan. They weren’t all great of course, but clubs started to trust us with their players. Can you imagine getting a loan in with the quality George Evans had now?
Things do take time but if you do things right it doesn’t go unnoticed in the football world.
For what it is worth, I don’t like the current loan system, it doesn’t work well for lower league clubs. I think 3 month loans should be a thing again and be able to be done in between transfer windows.
Louie Barry been loaned out numerous times now good player have to wonder why we cant get him here?
as I remember it.
When it came to Walsall forming their YT/U18s
We’d use our own 16s and pick up the released lads from the local bigger clubs or other clubs. Scott Dann was a Halsall connection ? Didn’t Grigg and Patterson come via Blues and Cov.
Clearly someone had good connections we had a competitive youth set up.
Looks like that side of things has vanished. Youth team are the whipping boys and produce nothing.
1st team = poor/average
Youth teams = poor
Management team = average/poor
Exec team = experts in failure
Scouting & network = poor
Reputation = poor
Prices = high
reality check: we are small and useless, if we have a decent player they leave for a bigger club
Exactly this.
Let’s get players in who want to play here because we look attractive to them through a style of football that is good to watch and play, not because they’re forced here.
“So yeah, we want you sign for Walsall on a six month loan, we like the look of you…basically your job will be to play up front and win the ball in the air when the keeper hoofs it…yeah I know you are 5 foot six and a winger but that’s what we want you to do, you need to get with the project, this is our style of play…we want to sign your mate as well, he’s a good defender, basically his job, see, if you don’t win the header when the keeper hoofs it he has to get possession back and then hoof it again, see, give you another chance to win the header…where are you going?, no, don’t run away, come back here, I haven’t told about all the subs at half time, making sure everyone gets a chance to play, see…”
Yeah I mean we need to change our current style of play first, obviously!
Didnt help that they were crap
I think that’s true but mainly due to the poor quality of the loans we have been given, not our mismanagement of those loans. The difference with Rushworth and Bennett is that they are quality players, ready to play men’s football. Contrast them with the likes of DJT who are not good enough. So, it’s up to the loaning club, as much as us, to give us some decent players we can develop.
Yes, I wouldn’t disagree, we sign too much crap because we apparently need players to make the numbers up and fill out the squad. So we release Bates and Leak, and let Willock, Foulkes and Perry go on loan then sign Cashman and DJT and Flynn Clarke and others on loan instead of using our own players.
We need a change in philosophy, to go back to developing our own youngsters and using the loan system for signing quality, Rushworth and Bennett as mentioned, and players like McCarthy, Evans, Tyler Roberts, Hiwula etc.