this, JW was highly critical of many of the 15/16 squad⌠absolute foolish move and a huge reason behind many jumping ship.
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Whitney was never gonna succeed with the physio tag hanging over him, I never wanted him at the start and was a big critic but Iâll admit one thing it was darn sight better to what I witnessed again yesterday
I think we can criticise Ckarke all we want but there comes a point where the players need to man up and take some responsibility, whether that be individually or more so as a team. Clarke has drowned on about this for weeks now. With the exception of Sinclair and to a degree Clarke I cant see where others players lead by example. Bates, for someone who is only 18, has shown more balls than players with far more experience than him. Not sure what contact he is on but the club need to ensure that he is tied down for a good few more years as I think that other clubs will be sniffing round very soon, if not already.
I know we have all said that certain players arenât good enough, but they are professional footballers for christ sake. I cant see teams like Bristol City persisting with someone like Holden if they didnât think he had something. Norman, Scarr, Jules, Lavery, Gaffney, Facey and Liddle for example have all had relative successful seasons before signing for us (Norman when he was at Oxford year before, and Scarr at Wycombe) and have all been highly regarded by their previous clubs. Liddle may be time has caught up with him, but still they should all be offering more than they are and not making such basic mistakes.
I do wonder about the quality of the coaching that they get. For someone like Marcus Stewart who was such a good player in his day, then he obviously cant be getting his ideas across to our strikers very well at the moment.
I think the problem is that players who do come here far too easily get taken over by the stench of failure that still oozes through the club. There are too few players prepared to fight for the club and bring us through these dark days. Thatâs where I think Clatke is right about the mentality side.of things. I know he signed them, but you can look at a playerâs stats all day long but what you wont now is about the mental strength of player until you have signed him.
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I never mentioned Keates, Keates did nothing as Walsall manager if truth be told, there was no improvement for the last phase of games after he took over from Whitney - Whitneyâs last 9 games w3 d2 l4, last 9 games after Whitneyâs sacking w2 d2 l 5, and last season, after a good start was a disaster. Whitney on the other hand took us to a third place finish with Smithâs team narrowing the gap on Burton from 9 points when he took over, to goal difference. We finished 14th in his next season, and were 14th again when he got sacked.
Since when has being 14th in the 3rd division been a sacking offence at Walsall?
In my opinion Whitney was sacked to diffuse the increasing discontent around the club that was getting ridiculous and starting to put the spotlight back on Bonser, and thatâs also why Keates was appointed. When you look back at that season is was ludicrous, fans calling for the managerâs head during a 3-0 away win at Doncaster, the stick Baka was getting despite being pretty useful in an average team, and clearly improving slowly. Scrapping amongst ourselves at Shrewsbury, pretty pathetic stuff, and thatâs before you even mention social media.
Totally agree with what you say regards Bonser though, which is why, like I say Whitney was sacked and Keates appointed, look where its got us! One of the worst decisions of the Bonser era and there are plenty to choose from, and frankly a despicable way to treat an excellent club servant.
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Totally agree about Newport however we got a 0-0 draw in August at home
There is no way in this world DC is under qualified for the job, certainly compared to Keates and Whitney.
However what obviously worked generally well at Bristol Rovers isnât working here.
If anything heâs OVER qualified and the tools at his disposal ainât got a clue what heâs asking of them thatâs my perception anyway.
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The quality of the players must be the difference?
Whitney had lost the plot and that 3-0 Home defeat v Rochdale was a truly shocking performance. He may have been 14th but that team was sinking down fast
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Immortal question, when results are bad. Bad players have been signed, or process of coaching players is that bad. Answers? Players and coaching staff have them, but itâs secret.
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It wasnât though, 11 points from his last 9 games isnât âsinking fastâ, its being lower mid-table with the occasional terrible display eg Rochdale, odd unexpected win due to a storming half or individual performance, eg Southend and Ozzy hat-trick, and 4-2 v Donny when we were 4-0 up with 3 minutes to go, permiated by some turgid dross like 1-0 home wins over Scunny and the Dongs and 0-0 away at Gillingham. But all along we were picking up points at a rate compatible with being lower mid-table, unlike since which ironically has very much been âsinking fastâ. The whole lost the plot myth is something that came out of social media, fueled disproportianately by Isiah Osbourne downing tools because he didnât like his contract offer, and a very public bad day at the office against Newport in the cup. If the Whitney factor had been the issue that was holding that team back in March 2018, then why did they perform WORSE after he left until the end of the season, picking up only 8 points from 9 games, 6 of which were in a 1-0 win against rock bottom Bury who outplayed us then scored a last minute own -goal, and against Northampton who battered us for 80 minutes before Baka and Dobson combined for that all important goal? There was no improvement whatsoever after Whitneyâs sacking, and here we sit less than two years after that shocking 3-0 away win at Doncaster, 2 points and 2 places off the bottom of the football league. Could anyone in all seriousness make a case to say that if we had stuck with him as we did with Smith, that we would be worse off than we are now?
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He was a â â â â
Just because how bad we are now doesnât suddenly make him a good manager, he wasnât. The football was largely terrible and who can forget his total misuse of Tyler Roberts for 6 months, if heâd used him properly he may well have been higher than 14th.
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Letâs also not forget that Whitney signed Franck Moussa, Flo Cuvelier (twice) and Andreas Makris. All of whom commanded big signing-on fees as I understand.
I doubt anyone other than uncle Jeff was behind the signing of Makris! I bet Whitney had never heard of him. Moussa and Cuvillier were/are amongst the type of speculative signings we always make. They had good ability but were terminally injury prone. Whitney, with his background probably thought he could get a tune out of them as he had done with the likes of Osbourne, Bradshaw, Chambo etc etc. But it doesnât always come off. and in their cases didnât. As for being higher than 14th, well history tells you that Walsall need exceptional managers to manage that, ones like Graydon, Buckley, Smith, although Smith only managed it for a few months before escaping to Brentford. So Iâm not saying Whitney was necessarily a good manager, just that he was a lot better than whatâs come since, and many that went before, so I guess he was average - hence we were midtable league one.
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Stuart Sinclair and Clarke were regulars under him at Brizzle aswell. They also signed a fair few from non league which heâs done here.
As I said before when he started spending decent transfer fees on proven league 1 and 2 players the results actually dipped massively so no guarentee things would improve if you increased his budget.
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Makris was a blatant fiddle most obvious one in history.
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Another pick an d mix team out of lucky dip bag and it showed early on for their goal no one knew where they were supposed to be playing was it back 3/4/5 so no marking of swindon players I waited for goals to mount up but once sicknote went of and Bates came on we improved.
Another mistake early 2nd half had me worried again but held on and when we scored thought we were the better team then on.
Deserved a draw and would have got one but for Holden miss.Most annoying thing this season we are s*** but so is nearly every team in the league if we had striker to put in chances we would be halfway up at least.
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guthrie is another matt jarvis and we should have got at least a point for me and i agree this league is very poor even the top teams look average.
What a load of absolute baloney.