In Sadler’s pre-match Birmingham interview he says he’s still waiting patiently for more signings.
I can understand clubs not releasing players on loan until their pre-season is almost complete. They need to see players in pre-season, how they fit into their own squads, how they play alongside 1st team players and to see if they are ready or need more loan experience.
Didn’t it take weeks for us to sign Dave Okagbue last season. Wasn’t it rumoured several weeks before it actually happened?
I imagine players who are nowhere near 1st team football can get loaned out early, but others are kept close to the 1st team squad until the season is almost ready to start.
This is a dangerous strategy. So, we wait till 9th August for player X, and then his club decides not to loan him out. What do we do then? Why can’t we just go out and identify a free agent and sign them, like other clubs do? I suppose you could say that we did that with Flash, but I don’t suppose we would have faced much competition for him!
Maybe this is why the club are stringing out any decisions on the forwards we have on loan just incase we HAVE to sign them for reasons you’ve just stated.
I hate it every season when other teams make decent signings early, just smacks of more ambition to me.
I personally feel/hope he will uncover another gem like Draper (without a recall clause) definately not going to be an established striker with proven goal scoring record
I was once told by a chap (former neighbour, now long deceased) that the main reason we got comfortably re elected so often in the 1950’s was that we had such good gates!
The memories and memorabilia (he collected WFC programmes) my ex neighbour had used to amaze me.
He was in his 80’s in the 1970’s.
He had seen us play at the West Bromwich road ground, saw the Arsenal game, the game at Villa Park…
He had teamsheets/programmes from games in the Birmingham league, Midland League, Southern League…
Maybe I should do a thread on what I can remember him telling me.
Maybe start a new thread, i’m sure many will be interested. I loved the “birth of the Saddlers” book which was both a social history as well as a football club history.
Did our geographical location also work to our advantage? Much easier for other teams to get to Walsall for a mid-week winter fixture than, say, Workington in one direction or Torquay in the other.
In today’s programme, both Pomlett and Sadler himself say we are working hard on getting in a couple more players before the start of the season.
And don’t forget that the transfer window is still open for another 4 weeks after the league kicks off, so still time to bring in others (such as EPL or Championship loans) that might not be available until late on.
That’s all well and good but why have we left it so late again when others have signed permanent signings , we never put all the pieces in the jigsaw we’re always scratching around for that final piece