I just think sometimes it’s just our luck like everything else at club . We get new yank investors who are not prepared to put money in to the team to get us out this shite league.
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The 2nd statement did very little to give supporters a lift and a hope of better times ahead in my opinion
Absolutely this. I’ve been posting this a few times in lieu of the Sadler appointment.
They’re scratching around with a plan to try and justify this appointment.
I don’t get it. Why not just appoint Artell or Alexander - give him some money and get on with it.
It seems such a huge risk this Sadler appointment - and I don’t know why we are doing it to ourselves.
Is it the budget? Is it this insistence on doing things a ‘new way’ ? Did the other managers walk away (this is what I’ve been told) when informed if the proposed micro managing of the playing side ?
I just don’t get the rationale of it all.
There is no way in this universe that Mat Sadler was the best person for the job at this time. No way.
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Great positive post @Cats
I think a lot of us have been worn down by all of the false dawns that all had similarly packaged intent that came to nothing or worse than nothing they made the football team worse than it was before.
So I think it’s actions we want to see.
Let’s see the cut of the back room staff, let’s see the calibre of signings we make, let’s see the Saddlers Club up and running, let’s feel this matchday experience.
I really hope it is all delivered but I’m sure even Ben himself will acknowledge, we have every right to take a “wait and see” approach rather than cracking open the bubbly.
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That I can’t believe. As you don’t seem to have enjoyed anything about the club for all the time I’ve been on uts.
Also stupidly pessimistic low expectations.
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He probably was as surprised and disappointed as the rest of us how it all went to shit after Christmas. He will need to stick his hand in his pocket even to stand still next season. I don’t really have an expectation yet for next season, not until I see the squad. I’ll be happy if we are threatening promotion / playoffs throughout the season.
What’s your expectation?
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Is it stupid if we have finished in the top 10, 3 times in the last 16 years ?
… and we haven’t finished in the top half of League 2 in the 4 years we have been here?
Seems coldly logical mate.
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Equally, no reason we should be expecting a top seven finish either. How many of us would accept 60-65 points next season as a reasonable measure of progress even if we don’t bother the playoffs?
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Really??
In the Prem, Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth have all just had fabulous seasons.
In the Championship Luton won promotion, and they along with Sunderland and Coventry who also reached the play-offs were lower half budgets.
Plymouth who won League One wasn’t it?
In our league, Stevenage and Carlisle succeeded where Salford, Stockport and Bradford failed.
In the NL Wrexham finally make it up PHEW!! Now they can once again compete with the likes of Harrogate, Barrow, and Sutton that bettered them in recent seasons - the latter as a part-time outfit.
So there’s a quick body of evidence that disproves your point, just off the top of my head.
Absolutely. It’s not about “bankrolling”, its about having a sustainable long term strategy that incorporates and is crucially dependent upon initiating a significant uptick in the football performance, and that initial stage requires financial investment coupled with the right personnel in place with a view to growing the business with for a future return. As I am now getting tired of repeating, if Trivela havn’t realised first hand via the reality of the incredible support demonstrated in the face of hoofball and 1 win in 22 coupled with the potential they glimpsed first hand from the cup -run - followed by the collapse after it - that this is a club that needs an injection of investment to defribillate its potential out of the ludicrously agrandised “life-support” model of Bonser/Pomlett/Gamble et al, then they are even more ominously clueless than they are now starting to appear.
Speak for yourself, many of us knew pretty much exactly what was coming in January and what the outcome would be, but still hoped, as now, there would be a surprise happy ending for a change, there wasn’t. It’s like watching an old film that you’ve seen 50 times over and thinking the ending’s going to be different, because to do so demonstrates “optimism”.
And I can tell you now that I do my fair share of moaning, both on here and via emails to the club but in this case I will give Boycott time to implement his vision for the club. It is in his interests for things to improve. I can’t imagine any of his invited/corporate guests would have enjoyed the matches during the second half of the season and it doesn’t put him in a good light to these people if the club doesn’t look good. As I said in my previous post, if things don’t improve or get worse, I will be one of the first to moan.
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Of course Geordie, us mere mortals couldn’t possibly expect to have your foresight and knowledge of the world.
For every Brighton and Brentford, there is a Bradford, Southend, Oldham, Torquay, Derby, Ipswich, Portsmouth etc etc
.
I can only speak for the last 50 odd years. We aren’t great, but we are one good season from being back to a Div 3 side. We are only one bad season from being a Div 5 side because the structure of the league and the money involved has changed, both of which are completely out of both mind and your control.
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Yes, I was one of them and I said that not signing DJ would come back to haunt us. I also said I thought the 2 FGR lads wouldn’t be fit enough but I was moaned at for being negative and that I shouldn’t expect the club to spend huge money signing DJ. Now people want us to do exactly that with quality signings.
And all of that is fair enough. Nobody should blindly follow every word they say, it’s actions that matter.
But there are fine words in that letter about how we wants to see the club progress and he answers many of the bigger, overarching points that fans would raise. He then goes on to ask fans to get behind this new vision and this new manager and I can’t see what can be gained by not doing so, by talking us down before a ball has been kicked, by predicting national league football in a year’s time (as several on here have forecast at the start of each of the last few seasons) and by writing off Sadler and Boycott without at least giving them a chance and our backing. What’s the alternative?
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There’s very valid reason for cynicism, but would agree that there is no alternative than to hope BB’s words are backed by action and to support that process.
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I got fed up of reading the comments on here, only Shrops seemed to grasp what was said but I did skip a lot so maybe I missed a couple.
Regarding the football Ben has said exactly what I expected and wanted him to say and is what I said in the manager thread,. What he said about Sadler are the reasons I thought he was appointed and before the usual ones start saying I am a happy clapper don’t bother as I am not insulted by it as it just shows an immature mind.
The bottom line is that I am fed up of usual style of play as I am sure most sensible fans are, its boring, it does not work, we end up conceding silly goals and there is hardly any real excitement. Ben in one season has identified what most of us have been saying for years but every year we end up with the same run of the mill managers who have ther own way of doing things. Unfortunately they are normally lower league managers who sometimes get lucky.
Now he is changing the style of play, improving the facilities, has got the ground back plus the saddlers club and has stated that he wants to put Walsall back on the map. I do believe its possible to attract players that can play the type of game being planned and I don’t accept that at our level they don’t have the ability. We have seen some good play amongst the rubbish in the last year and with a few decent signings or loans anything can happen.
But no, the number of people on here who are running down everything he says, even though he is doing what most people have been asking for as far back as I can remember is unbelievable. I have never seen such a negative bunch of fans on here before.
Give him a chance at least before we treat him like a player and try and drive him away.
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Corporate Waffle.
Bored now, honestly give up. This is pure bull shit. Good luck to em.
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Can’t beat a surprise happy ending btw 
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Expectation or what I think will happen? That’s two different things.
This club should be looking at the play offs every single season it’s in this division. And if it’s not, whats the point? Five season we’ve been down here now when do we actually start aiming for something worth aiming for?
Do I think that will happen? Right now, no.
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Why? Every other manager has been expected to make play offs, or a tilt at it? Why is it different all of a sudden? How many years are we told “this club wants to be promoted, but it’s not one for this season”?
Happens every summer.
Yep. Has been for his predecessors too. How did that go?
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