In that sense killer it’s probably the only box he doesn’t tick
But how many applicants with a league management pedigree would have his back ground in recruitment / player development.
If Dutton is getting his act together then this can be fixed with an assistant.
I think we need that recruitment / football knowledge rather than a baby sitter for the manager at the moment
If this works great. If it doesn’t can it get much worse than some of the rubbish we’ve brought in the last few years ?
I’ll judge if it’s a good appointment or not purely based on if we get promoted next season or not if we go up job done if we don’t what a absolute waste of money that would actually be giving a bloke a wage that would have covered the salary of a decent striker then the bloke doing the dof role has made no difference.
One other thing that I don’t really understand is it looks like Dutton will be manager next season but the dof job description clearly states he’s in full control of football matters even down to “football philosophy” “recruitment” etc but what happens if pressure is on a bit next season we are 3-4 games without a win and Dutton doesn’t agree with the dof on certain things like style of play, Who has the final day ? If Dutton for example says I think we’ll keep it tight a draw is a good result but dof says we gonna go all out attack take the game to the opposition , what do they do?
Instant gratification? Not sure we will go up next year, and a sustainable plan for a medium-long term sustainable future is much more important to me. We need the base for league one, and ours has been heavily eroded in recent times. I see this appointment as addressing that first and foremost.
Agree, I want him to put in place strategies that will continue to benefit us ten years hence, or more. Not that bothered about promotion next season as long as I can see what we are trying to achieve. When we do go up I want us to have the structure in place that will enable us to thrive.
For too long we’ve done well only when we appoint an excellent manager who can get us success despite being a bit of a shambles.
Hopefully JF will make us the “well run club” that I have heard so much about over the years, but have seen so little of.
If we don’t go up next season we’ll never go up and while we are making this “sustainable plan” club’s like Swindon & Bristol Rovers Will come down without no plan other than to get a winning team on the pitch to go straight back up again.
Crystal ball is hard at work this morning I see.
How can you be “not that bothered about promotion next season” that means you’ll be not that bothered about us losing most games ,in this dog and duck division win half the games you Play you win the league even losing the other 50%, The team that finishes 7th can actually be crap all season and still go up with a bit of luck.
I don’t want us to be crap all season and still go up because that would probably mean we would come back down. I want us to be good enough to stay up when we go up. I want to see the Club doing things the right way, being run the right way, and hopefully JF will help us achieve that.
We’ve been in decline for a long time, we need to arrest that and start recruiting well, developing our own players and build a club that can thrive in League One and eventually play in the Championship again.
If someone else is in tasked with setting up a player recruitment methodology for the club, helps with negotiations and all the other unglamorous ‘admin’ leaves Dutton to get on and fully focus with coaching the team, organising them etc then that could be a massive positive.
It’s less common for a manager to run everything now, all that does is encourage control freaks.
I think both @JumboTrudgeon and I are saying we are weak right now so a bump up to league one is the same as was to the championship all those years ago. We need a push that is sustainable, not a flash in the pan. I hope Jamie can manage this aspect, but asking a completely new set up to achieve it in twelve months is heaping a weight of your expectation on their shoulders.
Yes, we need it. Yes, I hope happens soon. Just also hes, we need to be able to kick on, not fall down straight away.
Very slow decline indeed because upto the point we find ourselves in now Walsall fc spend 23 out of 24 seasons in the league above and one above that .
That’s almost the last quarter of a century we’ve played football at the level we now apparently need to have “sustainable” plan to get back to 🤦.
We should be gunning for promotion, if Pomlett is to be believed then we have the playing budget to compete… no excuse.
Your reading to much into it this is dog and duck league we need to get out of it anyway possible then I’ll agree to “sustainable plans” etc in the league above.
The club had no sustainable plan when richard money was in charge we won The league and spent a decade a comfortable league 1 club More or less and should have gone up with a bit of luck the one seasons
Agree a decent manager and decent budget should get you out of this league. The DOF will earn his money in the league above.
The important bit is we have a plan. Under Bonssr the only plan was to pay the rent, with the occasional kick in the groin to satisfy the fans (sometimes Uncle Jeef’s doing, sometimes not). The appointment of a DoF is a significant change, and needs a resource restructure behind the scenes as well as a concerted campaign to re-engage with fans. That is the key to sustainability, not just some ephemeral ‘instant promotion’ based on your assumption that because we’ve been upstairs in the past we deserve it right now.
There is no point in getting promotion next year to come back down a year later as Swindon and Northampton might well do. The gap between the Divisions is growing every year and I hope the DoF will help us lay a substantial base for us to be competitive in division 1. Crewe are a good example at the moment of what I think we should try to do. Having said all that I expect us to be challenging next season as does every fan but if we just fail I won’t be demanding sackings of either the coach or the DoF.
We must have the least ambitious fan base in the country 
When you’ve followed Walsall for 40+ years ambition is optional. Yes, we (mostly) have it , but on different timescales!
I honestly believe some of the Walsall fans would be saying the same things about sustainable plans and stuff if we were in the national league north.
How can a fanbase be “not that bothered” about getting out of a league we’ve hardly ever in 150 year’s of existence been bad enough to be in. Now in 2021 apparently we need to accept we might not be good enough to get out of it 🤦 we’ve never been bad enough to be in this league before maybe 15-20 year’s in the history of the club.
It’s like having Aston Villa fans when they went down saying oh don’t worry we need a sustainable plan to get back to the place we’ve always been, They didn’t say that they knew they needed to get back asap before they turned into sheffield Wednesday or nottingham forest.
If we hang around league 2 for another Year we will end up being the next Stockport .
You need to understand the difference between tactics and strategy