Good job that wasn’t the only point I made then.
That would be scraping the barrel 
Scooby mate do u have the link to get the AD-free I don’t know how find it
He was pictured when they reported back and doing fitness drills.
Unless he’s now moved on since?
You generally say we scored more last season so it’s fine. You also reposted your point that is was inevitable we’d concede more.
I’m not being negative, I’m pointing out that we’ll need more goals in the team to succeed. I’m analysing where I think we are and what we need to do as a club.
Surely that’s the point of this site?
It’s not weird,. You’ve just tried to paint me as weird to garner support because you don’t have the intellect to discuss the point made so you’re trying to minimise my opinion.
I enjoy debating with others who have a different view. I’m open to changing my mind if I get an opposing view. Completelysaddled has made me see another view quite a few times for example.
If you’re not interested in talking through different opinions then fair enough. I misunderstood what you were trying to achieve by posting your opinion on here and assumed you wanted to enter into a discussion.
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Can we have a new thread called ‘let’s debate whether we are good enough’ and keep this one for rumours?!
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every time i log in hoping i see some rumours and i never do lol
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That’s a good point, next season predictions would be a good thread
I posted reasons for conceding more goals. Briefly they were;
- more goals conceded in league 2 on the whole
- a more risky approach to games which resulted in more goals scored as well as more conceded
- time given to young players
- other teams needing to score more against us.
Are any of these false?
Of course, the extent to which they contribute to our poorer defence can be debated.
You then took just the first of these bullet points and said
What a tremendous leap this statement is.
Firstly in ignores the other 3 reasons I give for the increase in Walsall conceding
Secondly it’s a lot of nonsense . Let’s break down what you said
So we deserve credit for scoring 50% more goals, you are attributing the words credit to me here, where I haven’t said any such thing. It’s a seperate debate about where credit lies for our increased goal scoring. I never made any statement about credit for our goals scored. I just responded to Sephorith saying our strike force is low scoring.
even though everybody did the same really? Everybody else improved their goals scored by 50%. Can you show me the evidence of this?
but it’s not our fault that we conceded 48% more goals because everybody did the same?
No it’s not. Whereas 100% of the goals scored by Walsall were associated with actions by Walsall. The wider increase in goals across the league are due to a multitude of reasons. Some, such as longer injury time would be expected to be reflected in Walsalls goal scoring stats, others such as a more potent strike forces would not be expected to be reflected in Walsalls goal scoring stats.
By your logic Walsall should score more goals because Harrogate conceded 9 at Mansfield!
.
I enjoy debating with others too, but I don’t appreciate cherry picking and framing arguments to paint a certain picture.
We finished 11th. We weren’t crap, we weren’t brilliant.
We need to improve next year.
That’s it surely?
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On the 4 points - if more goals are conceded in league 2, then more goals are being scored aren’t they.
A more risky approach is fair enough I’d say. Time given to younger players, kind of fair, but if the aim is promotion then we will surely be putting a side out to compete at that level.
I’d say the goals conceded came down to our inability to retain the ball, Knowles was particularly bad in that regard. Evans complete drop off killed us and Smith was a problem once teams realised that he doesn’t claim crosses. Again, that’s just my opinion.
I don’t have any figures, but your figures showed 1,645 goals last season vs 1,294 the season before. 27% change all round and we were at 48-50%. So our goals for/against changed by more than most, but unfortunately both changed. It’s the ratio that matters to me, not total numbers in one area.
If goals scored and conceded across the league are for a multitude of reasons such as injury time & strikers, why are ours solely down to us?
I don’t see how that works, I’m not the one saying that the wider landscape of the league can explain things that go badly for us, but we’re the architects of our own success.
For the record, my view of next season is that I think Hutch is a massive loss, but Lakin does look good. I think Knowles caused us a lot of problems - he constantly gave the ball away and killed our attacks, Barrett looks like a big improvement. Simkin comes with a great reputation but couldn’t get a game for FGR last season, so I’ll wait and see on that one, he could be the next Rushworth for all I know.
A lot of our younger players will improve. Hopefully Sadler will evolve our style. Hopefully we’ll sign a couple of players that can chip in some goals and fire us towards the playoffs.
I’m actually fairly balanced in my view of what happens next season, we’re not far off being a playoff challenger, but I do think we need at least one signing that brings some goals to the table. If we get a Faal/Draper level replacement then we’re in decent shape.
The rest of the gap could be covered by an improvement in our playing style, less injuries and some player development potentially. Our players are pretty good if you throw some goals in there to bolster it.
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Seems that the answer will be no…can we just have an alert when there’s an actual rumour?!
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Totally agree and perfectly summed up in a few words.
A perfect example of that business acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
I just hope there are enough people at the club who accept that we do actually need to improve!
UP THE SADDLERS
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Can someone give me a call when Westie or Morocco Mole post anything?
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Its not a 100% correlation between goals scored in the league and each team scoring more though is it.
As a simple counter example Bradford scored 61 goals in 22/23 and 61 goals in 23/24. They didnt increase their goals scored by 50% like Walsall.
Youd have to fully analyse all goals scored in league 2 over the last two seasons to understand whats happening.
both off getting naughty apparently.
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we were terrible in the final run in and that’s when it actually meant something
I dispute that actually. There were some bad individual mistakes, but we werent that terrible on the whole
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A play off season has to be the minimum ambition.
The club has been at this level for over five years now. Last season was the only semi credible challenge for 7th in that time.
Currently as it stands it looks a tall order given the lack of goals but hopefully that will change in next month.
Top 3 is very remote, 3rd was 86 points last season so realistically it’s being in the mix of 5-6 teams going for 7th I hope.
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Give me strength