What project?
I can’t see anything.
On the pitch needs to judged at the end of the season our final league position. Recruitment has improved and so has the matchday experience not forgetting all the changes in staff in the different departments its clear the project extends past whats on the pitch.
1 Like
In a league as tight as this using league position and points as a measure doesn’t tell the whole story and muddies the waters. But what we see on the pitch offes more clarity.
Players are still being played out of position. We are set up cautiously. We don’t have the meaness and spite to keep the ball out of our net. We very rarely have had real control of the midfield.
We had these deficiencies after 10 games and we still have them now.
Yes we have had good moments but the negatives are far outweighing them. Progress if it is there isn’t moving quickly enough to prove to me that we are on the right track.
It’s not the Trivela project as a whole that is being questioned. Majority of fans can see a plan there off the pitch and Trivela seem to have the good will of fans on their side
1 Like
I see both sides of the argument.
Either
We’ve got to give a manager time to develop, form an identity and make progress because we aren’t in a position to ‘buy’ promotion
But equally…
We can’t keep treading water saying “Mañiana mañiana”, accepting failure, being happy to compete and nothing more.
Personally, I come down on the side of the fence that Sadler isn’t good enough right now. If he got 3 or 4 years, he might put together a team that can challenge - but is that what we are as a club? Just blindly hoping we throw double 6s at some point?
The kind of club we are - a penny pinching, financial security above all else kinda club, we absolutely must have a manager who gets value for money out of the squad.
What we can’t do is say “this is Sadlers learning curve, he needs another 2 windows”, because in Walsall-speak 2 windows can be as bad as wholesale change to the starting XI, or at best signing new players who don’t work out and we have to wait 6 months for the next window to fix it.
Case in point - our leading scorer, Isaac Hutchinson. We’ll almost certainly lose him in the summer, which means we need to find 15 goals from somewhere. Back to square 1, another season of struggle before we sign someone who nets a few, then another part of the team gets wrenched out to the highest bidder.
It’s a pointless cycle. We need a manager who comes in on a remit of getting us in the playoffs in year 1, come what May. No “building” bollocks, no “5 year plan” bollocks. I just feel we as a club have this laissez faire approach to football, success isn’t really a thing, not being in the bottom 6 is the closest we get to ambition, beyond that we lose our heads.
My hope is that Boycott has seen enough of Sadler and making moves for next season, they did last season with Flynn, but the most important thing is that whoever we bring in is told anything outside the top 10 is failure, we are currently far too happy being 16th in League 2
11 Likes
Smith had a project here, people loved it, he finished 19th, 14th and 13th in the four and a half years he was here. So it wasn’t really judged on league position. It was based on developing players, which ultimately led him to having four months of being a winning team before leaving.
Since Sadler has been given the responsibility, the club have
Extended contracts of key players instead of losing them at the end of the season for nothing, also meaning we won’t need a 40 player turnover for the first time since 2015.
Signing younger players that we can develop, looking into players currently from Ireland and Non League and maybe even America in the near future.
Better quality loan players as clubs can trust us with their players again after going through a stage where we pissed off clubs.
Telling me you can’t see that?
4 Likes
Signings not down to Sadler, neither are contract extensions.
With Smith, you could always see what he was trying to do, the way he was trying to play, and the learning he was doing on the job. Don’t see any of that from Sadler.
5 Likes
The massive difference being was Smith was working in a higher division with one of, if not the lowest budgets in the division, and as soon as he started getting somewhere the budget was cut again. (So Dean Smith said, anyway)
4 Likes
A lot of what you say is fair, but not Sadlers responsibility, his remit is coaching.
And the comment about the quality of loans is not one I’d agree with - we have a 50/50 hit rate and tbh I’m not a fan of the loan system in its current guise. We loan inexperienced players and the only thing they bring to the table is not really experience; just the fact they’ve come through an academy system so they supposedly have higher quality.
For every Freddie Draper there’s a Harvey Griffiths.
Also, what you say about Smith, he garnered a load of good will for the great escape, only possible due to a points deduction. So that helped, but we had a clear style and then a decent cup run, so he actually brought success in his tenure, but Sadler isn’t even developing a style. Don’t forget, Smith was dealing with a much more competitive League 1 compared to League 2.
5 Likes
I dont care if someone is Sadler in or out, but the comparisons to Dean Smith must stop 
It’s beyond insane. Literally cannot find a single comparable thing between the two.
You get a Graydon, Nicholl and to a lesser extent Dean Smith once in a blue moon. Maybe even less in modern football. Sadler is none of the above and never will be.
8 Likes
@Stretch No when taken in isolation, like Saturdays game when taken in isolation.
However in my opinion and that’s all it is an opinion with the same value as anyone else we are better off this year than last even if we finish 17th.
Foundations have been laid this year unlike under Clarke and Flynn where it was an individual project, you may not understand it , you may not like it but Jordan is acting as a group GM and building over a period of time the way it is done across the Atlantic, each window is being treated as a draft with free agent signings to add to youth we are aquiring.
The squad is very young and as a result very inconsistent hence it’s Wrexham one week , Sutton the next. If you want instant success go look elsewhere, don’t say we’ve been at it five years , Jordan hasn’t , he started when Flynn left , he should have started earlier but for whatever reason Flynn was given the keys and he crashed the car.
Sadler is part of a management team , he is one cog in set up , we may not see it that way but that’s the way it is.
Ask me next year, the structure of the club is improving that is the progress this season.
Having said all that I still believe this season is not over that is how inconsistent we are.
1 Like
Stop moaning and get behind the lads! 
3 Likes
I think most people who are Sadler out completely agree that we’re in a much better place and see all the things you’re talking about there.
That’s actually the problem for me - we’re suddenly not rubbish. We’re signing players sensibly, building, improving off the pitch etc.
The issue I have is that we have a fairly talented young group of players and it makes having a good coach who can improve players and get the best out of them crucial.
Sadler isn’t capable of that at the moment, and waiting in the hope that he becomes capable gives no guarantee that he ever will.
2 Likes
If were using a mutli club model for the benefit of players, we should be doing the same with managers and coaches too.
I think Trivela have a plan.
Sadler? His problem, is his flip flapping between contrasting styles of play.
I don’t get the point of it. Against Wrexham, Crewe and Tranmere - there was a clear plan of getting the ball down, Daniels (and Dave to a lesser extent) stepping in, creating an overload, getting runners in behind the forwards…
Contrast that to Sutton and Newport (and pretty much any home game in October and November) and we are back to aimless channel balls - and relying on wingbacks who can’t cross a ball.
Thats my issue - Smith stuck to his plan. Sadler doesn’t really have one.
If he’s going to become a good manager - he needs to find a general style of play and stick to it. Not this constant confusion of ideas and negative mindset he has.
10 Likes
Usual lack of insight from you. Still failing to grasp that the days of one style of play with the same starting 11 went out with Kevin Keegan.
Once again, you are utterly clueless.
Enjoyed the great style of play on Saturday did you??
No. I think it was a lesson. I think Newport posed us problems that no body else had done before and it would be interesting to think about how that could be combatted going forwards. We move onto Crawley who pose a completely different set of problems.
Still wouldn’t expect any insight on these matters from you with your mentality of a 3 year old who seems to think deciding a game is ‘must win’ before kick off is sufficient to render the opposition team as passive cannon fodder.
1 Like
I can see you have never played the game, nor coached, and have the insight of a Man United fan.
I’d stick to slightly off topic.
1 Like
I think this is the problem, teams have started to work this out and now it’s about mixing it up and creating a new problem for the opposition as the Daniels overload was massive for us in that good run but in more recent weeks has been less effective and I think it’s down to the opposition rather than Sadler abandoning it, Newport did a proper job on us stopping that threat completely.
Not the ideal time for the opposition to figure that out with games Saturday/Tuesday for a while now but this is a big test for Sadler.
2 Likes