Worrying that in his latest interview Sadler sees Mcentee as a midfielder, and describes Knowles as an “electric winger” that will no doubt be deployed with equal defensive responsibilities at the first opportunity. 
Unless Sadler realises the folly of asking 2,3,4 fourth division players to multitask every game to suit a formation unsupported by the recruitment and subsequent composition of the squad, his career in management will be brief and unsuccessful.
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On the late goals issue, we do need to have a strategy. When you have a Scarr player in the team you can deal with the long balls all day. It may look precarious because the opposition have a lot of the ball but with the midfield packed, they have to resort to the crosses from deep and they were not dangerous. The damaging goals we conceded at Morecambe and Crewe, which cost us 3 points, were both of that type.
Personally, I’d rather we scored at the other end but, if we are going to try to hold on, let’s have a strategy behind it.
One other observation - those two teams used the long throw to good effect. I am not saying we go back there but it does show how much L2 depends on set pieces. We have to be able to defend them.
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McEntee is a defender, not a midfielder; Knowles is a winger, not a wing-back. The 3-5-2 formation doesn’t suit the players we have: we should play 4-4-2 or 4-3-1-2. We are just too easy to score against at the moment, with many of the goals we concede, coming down our flanks (sorry if that last bit sounds like a line from a dodgy porn film!).
I welcome the change in style of play. I was upset by some of the football I saw last season. I prefer seeing a group of young players trying to improve. Even against Wrexham I was happy with most of the performance. However, in that game we gave them at least 2 of their goals and should have defended better for the first. We aren’t always going to take the chances we make so improvements in the defensive side of the game, positioning and dealing with the second ball are essential in this league. If we can do this we can have a good season. Saddler has said he needs another defender. I can only hope he gets his man and it goes some way to fixing a real problem.
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I am really encouraged and pleased with the entertaining style of play that Sadler is trying to implement and hope that we can build on this, at the same time as eradicating the defensive mistakes. As you have outlined above, the one aspect that I find infuriating is Sadler’s insistence on fitting square pegs in round holes; the worrying thing is that he clearly hasn’t learnt from Flynn’s mistakes last season.
It was the same against Brighton on Tuesday night, deploying Oteh at LWB and Allen at CB. I find it perplexing that, as a manager, you have a vision of the formation that you want to play with but then don’t bring in the requisite players to be competent in playing those positions.
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Unfortunately having watched the youth coaches at the Bescot and the Railway its apparent they want you to learn all positions and taking away the very proficiency you may have at an early age
Greetings dear friends! I bet a lot of you thought you had seen the last of the Manuel Pole, but really, you should all know better.
It’s wonderful to see so many of our most loyal Walsall FC The Venue and Football Club customers reverting to the ‘blind faith’ mindset that has served us so well over the last decade plus. The press release from our wonderful new partners in the business promised wholesale operational and structural change, and despite evidence to the contrary, the strength of the blind faith displayed by our customers every season is quite incredible. Admittedly, the rebirth stories do become more elaborate, but I am sure you would all agree, this is a necessary evil to keep this esteemed football club competing in the bottom half of Division Four.
A very, very important message for all Walsall FC The Venue and Football Club customers over the coming season. Unfortunately, due to commitments to a ladies football team, I will be unable to contribute here as often as I would like to allay all the negativity and nonsense that is often posted on this site, more often than not by people that quite clearly do not go to games.
I have already seen some negative people, who are clearly some of these often mentioned internet goblins or such like, pointing at other take-overs completed significantly after our own and asking why we never seem to get our house in order despite all the bold statements of intent every season. For all of your information, entertainment value has gone up by 60% for all opposition fans that watch our rip roaring style of expansive, attacking football. 60%!! As I am sure you will agree, the score at Gillingham is much lower! Who wants to sit through 1-0 wins and be top of the table when you can entertain people.
Please keep those straws clutched good people of Walsall. We need you. Keep repeating all those lines from the Matt Taylor and Fullerton experiment. It enables us to continue without the unnecessary focus that bad press or the nonsense from non-supporters brings to this well ran operation.
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It would take him time to get back up to speed but would anyone take Paul Downing back?
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The message behind the parody behind the sarcasm sounds very familiar to a few posters on here (obviously)
Like message board Inception, quite entertaining.
Id rather go for RWB or CM but yeah Paul Downing was pretty good.
Defending the long ball into the box as per Morecambe and Crewe, in the good old days with the likes of Andy Butler and these type of defenders the format was simple
Everyone takes a man to mark and block any run, win the header if needed.
But they shouldn’t need to win the header as we have a free man in the Andy Butler mould our best header. His job was to attack the ball and win the ball.
Now we go every man has a man, almost making it a 50/50 contest. Imho need to go back to basics, old school even