How will the Saddlers get on down in Essex?
- Walsall Win
- Draw
- Southend Win
0 voters
Oh how our expectations have changed …
For the better I think.
I expect us to be around mid table. If you’d offered me that preseason I’d have took your hand off. This is a very very tough game.
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Agree, I think this season has already shown that we’ll be competitive against 60% of the teams in the division but we’re not yet at a level where we’ll trouble the top 10.
Draw tonight and a win on Saturday would be very welcome, because November (Burton H, Fleetwood A, Sunderland H, Portsmouth A) could be a very tough month.
The aim is still the same as pre season get 50/52 points to stay up anything else a bonus, we have done better than we expected so far and lets hope it continues but get safe first and as soon as possible.
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Where we were 3 weeks before the season started , I agree with you that such an expectation was entirely predictable. However, surely it would be a massive disappointment if we ended up with 50-52 points from this position with this team. Effectively 28-30 points from 33 games would be shocking and would mean Keates has not moved us on at all.
I can’t see it happening though. I think we will get at least 65 points.
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Blackpool finished 12th with 60 points last season, so 65 is a decent yard stick. Something to build on next season, too.
I slightly disagree. It would be a disappointment to only get those points between now and the end of the season BUT I still wouldn’t say that Keates hadn’t moved us on at all. Couple of things:
Last seasons team got those points because of performances in the first half of the season. A team that had Zeli, Tyler Roberts, James Wilson, Dan Agyei and a firing on all cylinders Oztumer. From mid point of last season, the way that team was playing it was relegation standard. No doubt in my mind. There were soul destroying performances against Charlton, Blackburn, Rochdale at home, Wigan at home. and Wimbledon at home. The team at the end of last season for all intents and purposes were a relegation standard, one that then lost it’s best player. Yes Keates was in charge but it wasn’t his team. All he could do was limp us over the line and in my view he did well to do that.
The other point would be the way we are playing. It’s better to watch than anything Whitney served up in the best part of two years.
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If we were to achieve 28-30 points from the next 33 games then it would be no different to last season? Also I imagine to only secure that points tally we wouldn’t be playing the way we are/have been playing.
Probably a little academic as there is no way we are going to end up anywhere near the relegation places and based on Keates’ recruitment so far, I wouldn’t bet against another couple of good signings in January.
No it wouldn’t in terms of points achieved but what I’m saying is the team Keates inherited was a relegation team in my eyes. You almost have to discount the first half of last season because Keates never really felt the benefit of having a full firing Oztumer and a championship player like Tyler Roberts. He took over a team on a massive slide. So even if he “only” made safety (something that would have been seen as turn up at most book makers at the start of this season) he’s still improved the side he took over because that was a nailed on relegation team in my opinion.
I think this will be irrelevant in the end.
At our current rate we are on course for 78, which would be great but is probably a little unrealistic.
Our aim every season is to get to 50 as quickly as possible, as others have said.
With the squad as it was when Keates took over, 50 would have been the target.
The answer, as often, is somewhere in the middle.
If we get nearer 78 than 50 it will be a tremendous first season.
Matches like Southend away will not be ones that define this campaign.
Even if Whitney got a freak win there in the past.
For each of those performances there were at least two winnable catastrophes.
Others have listed them above, I’m trying to forget them!