Very bad example. It took Port Vale 5 seasons to stop the rot, during which they finished in 20th place in League Two twice. At least we haven’t got that bad!
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Failure to invest in quality attacking players to me is the major problem. If you can’t create or score goals you are going nowhere.
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Fair points. I’d agree with the first three, 4 & 5 we’ll have to take the club’s word for, and though 6 is a positive it may prove to fall away if we don’t see some positive momentum soon.
A concern remains, as Funk mentions, that a ship will turn slower if you have many of the same people steering it.
Never agreed with this. We’d won 8 out of 25 league games before Adebayo left. Clarke knew the game was up and Adebayo has been a convenient excuse.
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They got promoted in the second season after changing owner, poaching our manager in the process. They just mised out on the playoffs the season before which was cut short due to covid.
It’s the perfect example to compare us against.
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Erm, you are incorrect.
Their stay in league 2 lasted 5 years however the takeover was finally completed on 7 May 2019, wrestling control from Vale’s Bonser - Norman Smurthwaite. In January 2020 Carol Shanahan took full control (having probably worked out the issues at the club) which involved removing all directors from the previous regime and installing her own board. By 2022 the club were promoted.
Your unquenchable thirst to defend all things Walsall FC knows no bounds. In that exact time frame we have had 2 takeovers and literally nothing has changed.
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Yep, Vale have turned it around since their new ownership and they look like a club on the up, all thanks to a new fresh approach and it’s what we need.
We might have new owners but the day to day running is by the same failures.
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I have some sympathy for your last point, and I wasn’t a Clarke fan at all. But I see parallels with Flynn in that there were games where he set us up just right to use the attributes of Adebayo and Gordon…before abandoning it at the first sign of trouble.
As for your point about those at the helm, I will always reiterate the point that whether an employee of an organisation is doing a good job or not can only be judged against the remit he’s been given and the objectives he has been set. I can’t speak about Mole but I have always suspected that Gamble has been given a very tight remit, centred around the finances of the club (and the owners!) and has performed admirably against that.
And maybe you raise a good point here in that, if my assumption on this is correct, you effectively have two strands of the club - one an administrative strand, the other a footballing one. They ideally should come under the full responsibility of one individual within the club and he or she should be judged against BOTH. Maybe some of the malaise at the club is because of that, but that responsibility lies with the owners (first Bonser, then Pomlett, then Trivela) if they have failed to do this.
So, in my ideal organisation, Flynn would report to the CEO and the CEO would be tasked with both keeping a steady financial ship but also with challenging, at the very least, for the play offs and, if these targets were not met, remedial action would need to be taken.
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After years and years of decline, and a season of crud, Walsall fans say “it might be nice to score a goal on a Tuesday evening once in a while.” Yep, we’re far too demanding of instant success. 
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If we’ve had so many variables and still have a huge problem then maybe it’s time to start looking at the constants.
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The problem is what’s been the problem for a long time, Walsall FC aren’t prepared to pay good wages on a strike force who know where the net is, ironic really when the aim of the game is to out score the opposition, until this changes then we’ll never progress as a football club.
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The real problem lies with the retention of the snake oil salesman who were previously and still are firmly encompassed within the ivory towers of the boardroom
The primary cancer has now gone. But Club won’t. Prosper until all the secondary tumours are removed. Once and for all
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Pomlett clearly stated that our already mid table budget was reduced by 30% due to injuries.
Why do people keep banging on about this great budget we have?? It’s nonsense
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Just for context, I thought it interesting to look at these quotes? From 15 years ago perhaps? Nope, from 3 months ago. Yes, indeed, things have gone awry since then, much of which can be pinned on the loss of Johnson and replacements who haven’t worked out. But, to me, this proves that we are not a million miles away because other supporters were clearly seeing it then as well…and it’s interesting when you see some of the posters who made these comments!!
“Something special is happening at our club and so glad to be seeing it.”
“Wow. It all seems to be coming together all at once. We have a playing squad, management team and ownership who we can all be really proud of.”
“MF sensed the win and went for it with his substitutions and change of formation, we haven’t had a manager whose done that in a very long time, he gave the players belief and they never gave up, everytime Maddox gets introduced something good happens.”
“Would been more than happy enough with a point from today. Feels inevitable the side will be in the top 7 in near future and then things can really get exciting”
“Whisper it quietly, but could something good be developing?”
“So proud of this team that represents our football club.”
“Brilliant performance. I really love this team.”
“Massive kudos to Flynn for turning this around, because a little under 12 months ago the decline looked irreversible.”
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Constant turnover of players, low risk strategy of signing players on short 12/24 month deals, meaning that anyone any good is soon to be out of contract and will go and the dross will be released leading us to rinse and repeat every summer. No long term planning or thinking, or patience to deliver the project.
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No, the budget wasn’t reduced by 30% , just that 30% of it was effectively used up by injured players, of which every single club will have some percentage of their budget used up by injured players over the course of a season.
Wasn’t it Pomlett who said we had top 7/top 10 budget? If the co-chairman himself stated that, and if it looks unlikely that we are not going to finish top 10 (and definitely not top 7) then how that budget is/was used is absolutely right to be challenged by supporters?
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No there is a huge difference in what you are saying, 2 of those players were recovering from ACL’ s with Riley and Gordon also suffering from long term lay offs.
These are not injuries picked up over a season, these are players not able to start the season. Flynn was not granted any contingency to cover those gaps.
He’s not a miracle worker
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Basically our squad hasn’t been good enough to prosper in the 4th division for a number of seasons now. Flynn has, with a few exceptions, made us solid at the back and hard to score against - but the quality of our attacking play is woeful as everyone is saying. This is due to insufficient funding being made available for creative midfield and front players - which of course require a higher financial outlay as the market is so competitive.
in my opinion, rather than the knee jerk reaction of sacking the manager and heralding another huge turnover of players we need to tackle the root cause of the problem. We have new American owners and funding which is great, but the old guard with their penny pinching attitude are still making all the day to day decisions. What we need is a new Chief Executive with strong football background and a more progressive attitude. Pomlett and Whalley should be told ‘thanks very much for all your work over the years but its time for a new broom’ Mole and Gamble could perhaps stay in their roles - but reporting to the new CEO.
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Players wages. Yep pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Poor coaching staff. Sadler and Haswell. Surely we can do better and this would help Flynn
Academy. Get rid of it. Use the ‘polish them up’ from non league model
Dire scouting. Never replaced Paul Taylor. Probably loads of players in foreign leagues dying for a crack at the Efl
The continued recruitment of u23 players. Stop it. They are shite and not ready for a physical League 2
Training. Too many days off under Flynn
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Agreed Riley and Gordon were unusual injuries, and we have been very unlucky over the past 12 months or so, but every single club has to deal with injuries of some description.
Flynn might not be a miracle worker but should still have used whatever budget he had better. He signed Clarke and Abraham who each barely lasted a few months.
Where are you thinking Riley was signed to play as we signed players after Riley’s injury. Right back? We signed Bennett to cover there. Midfield? We signed Maddox and then Willmott in Jan.
The argument Flynn hasn’t been granted any contingency just doesn’t stack up when he has bought in those, plus how many other loan players over the season, of which from January we had 6 loan players and could only name 5 in a matchday squad. A ridiculous position to put yourself in as a manager with a supposedly limited budget to play with.
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You realise there’s no free movement from the EU now?
So you basically have to be an international to come here. I’m sure there’s loads of Spanish and Portuguese internationals gagging to come and play in League 2 (those are the countries where Taylor scouted most of his talent).
Delusional muppetry. 
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