I’ve just listened to Mr Saddler’s interview on Radio WM, well it’s absolutely front and centre that the spin on our season has begun. Absolutely no mention of our winless run (collapse), just sterile rhetoric about how well we’ve done to be in with a chance of automatic promotion, how the group of players are fantastic and are fighting to achieve it. He even dropped the cliché about there are 20 odd other teams who’d love to be in our position, never once addressing just how poor the team have been for such a long time now and more importantly why!?
*Don’t get me wrong I fully appreciate where we find ourselves is way beyond what we thought possible at the start of the season but to find ourselves so far ahead and to implode as we have is difficult isn’t it?
At least Sadler is being positive. He’s not there making excuses. He’s focusing on the positives. I’m as gutted as anyone at our winless run, but I think it’s the right approach.
The alternative is to have him berate his players and himself for being so poor. We gotta stay positive and leave the post mortem till after the season has done and dusted. Still a fair chance this could be our best season since Dicky Dosh got us up.
I agree, in hindsight it’s probably the best decision to stay positive (as you say) and try to get over that line. There will be plenty of time to sift through the debris should they fail to get promoted so let’s hope that somehow they can get it done #UTS
I’ve been pretty bad with this but I agree. At this point we are currently 4th with a shot at promotion. What went before doesn’t matter.
As sad (I actually can’t think of a word that describes it adequately) as I am about the capitulation, we have to back the team and manager now and hope that it somehow clicks, whatever side of the fence we sit on.
Mat Sadler can say whatever he wants I don’t take much notice of what is said in the press, I guess he can’t do much else other than try and put a positive spin on it.
There was a golden opportunity on a plate for us and we had to become the worst team in the division over an extended period to potentially blow it.
We are a laughing stock, Smallsall, Drawsall, never win againsall.
More than that, it hurts a lot. It has broken me. We don’t have a lot to celebrate and whichever way anyone dresses it up, this is a cock up like you will probably never see again in football.
Sadler is displaying symptoms of a serious case of denial, and the club is suffering as a result. He is blissfully happy with the way the season has gone, and if given his time all over again, he would make exactly the same decisions.
Ben Boycott, Richard O’Kelly, Darren Byfield and Gary Waddock should have sprung an intervention upon him, and the first stage of recovery is making him admit that he has a problem.
Pick a point in time that suits and build your world view around that.
We are exactly where we wanted to be.
From a July 2024 perspective that is true
From a January 2025 perspective it is bollocks.
From 2022 perspective that is true
From a 2016 perspective it isn’t.
The thing with sport is that there’s an ebb and flow. You can build positive and negative momentum and the key is how you deal with both. At professional level there isn’t a “just happy to be here” mentality that wins anything. Infamous sporting bottlers aren’t famous because they got there in the first place, they are famous because they got into a seemingly insurmountable position and found a way to blow it. Whereas the great underdog stories are because they got the job done. In football, the Leicester City story is the story because they got it done. They didn’t knock off in January because somewhere around 6th in May was where they wanted to be in the preceding July. An example I’ve used before - Jean Van Der Velde isn’t famous because as an underdog he was leading the open by three coming down the 18th. Despite no doubt being top 20 is where he wanted to be on the Thursday morning - his story is one of sporting failure and choking - and rightly so - an absolute meltdown from a seemingly insurmountable position.
I’m getting messages from non Walsall people all over the country - none of them have lit me up with a “I see your boys are exactly where you wanted to be”. Most are “wtf has happened there then?”
For balance, I don’t think Sadler can be anything but positive going into the weekend. My worry is that he actually believes what he’s saying and the club is trying to turn this season’s story into one of success regardless of how it ends up. Whereas we all know, everyone knows, my non football following mates know, my wife knows, that anything other than promotion has been a sporting calamity with very little comparison in any professional sport at any time.
Let’s hope, pray, wish, for a late redemption arc. Nerves already kicking in for tomorrow.
I haven’t heard the interview but if it was anything like the stage managed rubbish that’s presented post match I wouldn’t be interested in listening to something resembling a party political broadcast.
I would actually prefer someone to ask the hard questions rather than allow Sadler to give an insight into tra la la land.
Why do you persist with lumping it to Jamma when it’s clearly not working.
Why do you play Adomah as a striker when he isn’t one.
Why are the loans underused.
Regardless of my frustration I’ll be there tomorrow and give 100% support to the saddlers.
The answers to the Jamma and Albert questions is that, similar to Southgate with England, he has no real clue how to get the best out of attacking players.
He only knows one way of playing and so will play that way regardless of its success. He has no clue how to get the best out of an skilful, dangerous player like Albert, nor how to play a striker with a bit of guile like DJ. He just wants target men donkeys or dogs that run around a lot.
Even his midfielders are in there to scrap. When the ball isn’t flying over their heads they’re scrapping and closing down. Rarely are they asked to actually get on the ball, play a few passes or dictate the possession and tempo of a game. That’s why Chang in there at Newport looked so different.
Doubt that would be his answer to the question though
If you live in denial about the negative things,you are bound to sound positive. I hope with all my heart that Sadler and the team win our final 2 games and get automatic promotion, but I really don’t trust Sadler and his style/system to get us above the bottom 8-10 in league 1. I also think Sadler has left a bad taste in a good proportion of fans mouths so when he has a bad run of results in league 1 he will have to stand up and face the music.
Youre absolutely right, just heard the presser from yesterday, they go on for ages and cover the best part of nothing. All that said, I want him in place for next season because the only way that can happen is buy achieving promotion, and I really dont see a point where we have a better chance than from where we are or where this season.
Lets hope it can be achieved, but as you rightly point out there is a bad taste from the form since February.
We may know as early as 5.00pm tomorrow how it is likely to pan out.
