Is that sarcasm or irony?
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Heard that we are in the market for a centre forward and midfield box to box type of player. Heard that we are close to signing both but given the transfer window is more complex the club are having to seek guidance from the FA to see if they are allowed to announce the signings. Wish they would leave the rules alone.
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Did think that, bit worrying if the club are touting a youth teamer signing a pro contract as a new signing!
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Understatement of the year!
What decent player will want to come to a club with a core of bottlers, and a manager who couldnāt manage an average Sunday morning overhung parks pitch team of fat kids.
Realistically I canāt see Sadler sanctioning the signing of any established, reliable āstrikersā
he doesnāt rate that sort of player (obviously). So weem stuck with 13th spot that the EFL supercomputer has us finishing, overly optimistic that, so even AI cannot be relied upon.
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I donāt know if Iām being an out-of-touch old git here - probably - but Iām not entirely at ease with CEOs and the like directly exchanging comments with anyone who, to use NoFoās term, āchimes inā. I know we wanted better communication but you can go too far the other way. This is how it starts with harmless comments being taken out of context and over-analysed.
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I agree itās not a ground breaking signing but the lad has been at the club since he was ten. He is now a professional and part of the group. I think itās right for him to be treated the same by the club in terms of media coverage as someone who cost us some money.
If he was my son and his achievements were allowed to go unannounced I wouldnāt be very happy.
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Any signings today @WestieJack
No. This story is no different to other years when youngsters from the Academy get their first professional contract. I like to see itā¦I just wish there were had a dozen a year!!
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Itās only standard though - we do it with first year pro contract signings coming through from our academy every year. If you look back at the news archive on the OS you can find plenty - last year it was George Barrett and Dylan Thomas. The only issue it raises for me is that they were announced as a pair, in keeping with the usual practice of doing them all at once, so does it mean that only Kilroy is good enough to be given a chance from our current batch of youngsters?
Great minds! 
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The Academy does not seem to be a good use of resources: shouldnāt we move to a model of picking up players like Rico Browne who donāt quite make it at bigger clubs and get released at 17-19? Even if we do unearth a decent prospect, itās likely they will get snaffled by bigger clubs before they play for the first team - and we donāt get much compensation! Or is the Academy just good for our community presence?
Yes there is only Kilroy this year.
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If the only aim of the academy is to produce first team players you have a point. However I like to think it serves a greater purpose than that. From a really early age lads and lasses are introduced to the game and learn how to play properly . It takes kids off the streets and if they are offered youth terms they also receive a good education as well playing football. I think that is good and so even if they donāt make it they can either find work or go on to higher education.
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Good point but that is what the Walsall Foundation does. They provide safe spaces for kids to play and get qualified coaching and run post 16 education and football programs.
The Academy is solely there to provide players for the first team. Ours is Cat 3 so lags behind all the other local clubs. This is why the production has been so poor recently. Cat 3 can only recruit players within 1.5 hours drive of the club so we are fishing in a small pond once all the other clubs have take their choices.
It must be a close decision as to whether it is worthwile persisting with the current model.
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Yes Iām with you. Itās a bit of a strange response from a CEO where quite a large group of your fanbase, are to say the least disgruntled, that you take the piss out of one of them on social media
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Thanks for that information. I was getting a bit mixed up.
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Not disputing that, itās great for the lad and his family, although a pro contract with us has not resulted in a good career since the mid 2010s.
Itās more that Ben Sadler seemed to be dressing it up as a signing.
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I think itās fair enough to treat this as a signing in media terms as itās a good thing to give the player equal billing as a first teamer.
That said, the laughing at a fan thing was tone deaf. As a fan Iām happy for the lad but I donāt really care about his signing in terms of moving the team forward this season. Heās just the new third choice keeper. He might turn out to be good in time, he might not.
Ben Sadler should appreciate that to a fan, a signing means a player that will be in the first team this season - ideally better than what we currently have for the first team (or had last season for goalkeepers as heās currently our only one).
Given the season weāve just had, Iād expect edgy fans to be treated with kid gloves rather than the way it was actually handled - and that comes from somebody who likes Ben Sadler.
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Ben Sadler has completely missed the mark with that comment. Fair enough it wasnāt exactly a smart comment but giving a youth team player a professional contract isnāt technically a signing itās more an internal promotion.
To take the piss publicly out of fans after the last 6 months is completely the wrong approach, heās another one that wonāt escape any criticism on the 9th July
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This is the trouble. When youāre at boardroom level youāre granted power, and with that power comes responsibility. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, an emoji is an emoji. But communication with the public is just that, open to everyoneās vastly differing ideals and perspectives. A person could easily interpret that as the CEO laughing at them, which isnāt a good look even if the sun was shining, but particularly so after weāve just spaffed a lead at the top of the table.
If youāre going to take a risk, the benefit has to be good enough. Iām not sure what the benefit of Benās reply is.
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