Let’s imagine the club had signed Laird full time on 18 month contract in January 2017. You then have a decent LB at the club so Leahy dosen’t get signed.
Club dosen’t have a clue, seemingly lets go of Laird as he would become one of the highest paid players at the club, signs Leahy who does become one of highest paid yet isn’t as good so then they go back to Lairdy who is well past it two years on (I assume Forest Green are still paying him weekly).
In a football sense it all is all so tragic really.
As mentioned McCarthy was also available last summer and signed permanently for Wycombe who admit they have a bottom 4 budget for this league. Guess if Keates was interested there wasn’t space with Devlin remaining at the club.
The other is a 17 goal striker surrounded by absolute dog ■■■■
Oztumer was a better player but I’m saying they were as successful signings. As were the rest of the examples you ignored. Even if you are being slightly hyperbolic. I seem to remember a certain Oztumer being dropped towards the end of last season amid moans from the fans that he made us play a certain way and they didn’t like it. Remind you of anyone?
As for the rest of your post, nothing I didn’t say myself:
“Yes he spread it even thinner because he wanted to have cover for every position. Isn’t that a further indictment of the budget? That it isn’t big enough to have even the basic amount of cover for a 22 man squad and include real quality?”.
Stop being so weirdly defensive over John Whitney. You seem to turn every discussion about him into some weird comparison, which wasn’t even the point in the first place. You think he was better, cool! I’m not arguing with you. But he still failed like everyone else bar one.
It took Dean Smith years to become competitive,and even then he jumped ship knowing that his budget would not see the team get over the finish line.
Football has now moved on from the Graydon era, big teams with investment all in and around League1/2.
Look at Our most recent signings, no longer are we trying to pinch players from our own league or a Championship squad player. We are shopping in non league and loaning u23 unproven squad players, oh and long term injured players in hope of a miracle.
Loan signings are really important at a club like ours. Twenty years ago Ray played the loan market to perfection. In 06/07 when it looked like the wheels were wobbling a bit on Dicky Dosh’s fourth division campaign, the loan market came in very usefully.
To get the best loan players you need to be seen as a trustworthy club who will give players experience and make them better.
As Smith’s star rose we saw bigger and bigger clubs prepared to trust us with their young players. It was the same when we were in the Championship under Lee when we had an emerging reputation for playing the game in the right way.
That reputation will have been damaged in recent years. And if I was the parent club of any of our current loanees I’d be worried about the negative impact their Walsall experience might have on them and whether they would return worse players for that.
It is another reason why the next managerial appointment is crucial. They need to be someone who’s own brand transcends Walsall FC’s and therefore somebody other clubs will trust.
Absolutely spot on! Just look at how the current batch of loanees (+ Connor Ronan) have been treated. If you were a manager, would you trust WFC to develop your players on loan? I wouldn’t.
I would take issue with one of P.T.'s points - “… under Lee to get the best loan players you need to be seen as a trustworthy club who will give players experience and make them better.” I think that most Saddlers fans, who witnessed the negative, sterile football in Lee’s last season, might disagree with that.
Talking of him, I find it harsh when Russell Martin gets so much of the blame.
I remember when he first joined and people said he is just the experience we need in defence to stop giving away silly goals, which suggests the problem had already started, he just wasn’t the man to solve it.
Did have to chuckle at this comment…“Top signing and top all round bloke. When you surround your club with characters like him you’ll be in a good position.” Completely the opposite to what was being said on here!
He was poor here but guess things have worked out fine as he still got to sign for a club with aim to be in league one next season and an hour closer to Brighton of course…
Personally I’d have played him a few games at RB, think he’s done that at Milton Keynes.
A lot of posters are suggesting it is all down to money and budgets - and to a great extent i agree - but i believe there is money available within the current budget to attract better quality. The likes of Jarvis and Martin wont have been cheap - and im sure the Baggies are requesting a decent sum for Fitzwater. As another poster suggested, maybe we should have reduced the size of the squad and supported it with our own prodiucts (and if they arent good enough then perhaps we should be putting more effort into the pipeline)
I agree. I think Keates has been relatively well backed. Four transfer fees is virtually unheard of. Will still have been a bottom eight budget but previous Walsall managers have had to work with far less.
I also agree that Keates’ ambition to have competition for every place in the team led to a huge quantity over quality issue. Which is why we can make five or six changes every week and we no more or less ■■■■ than we were the week before.
Of course it was balanced out by the great exodus of 2016 but he signed Jackson who came from Blackburn who were still paying most of their squad decent money, Moussa (maybe on a pay as you play) who was proven at this level and Oztumer was seen as promising player at Posh so would be on a decent league one salary.
And then you have the record signing who would be earning a record signing wage. Add in Laird coming in on loan and that to me comfortably beats all the non league signings even if small fees were paid.
I do wonder how keates would’ve done with Whitney’s budget. It easily dwarfs what we had this season.
High ticket sales during promotion chasing season leading to high early birds and playoff money. Then sales of Forde, Rico and Bradshaw added to that.
I think Whitney’s reign needs to be looked at as a bigger reason for this seasons downfall and our overall trend downward. Yeah we got oztumer but the amount of sheer awful players we signed with our biggest budget ever is crazy.
Not sure I’d agree with some of those names to be honest. Most of those Mullen signings for all their pedigree didn’t push us on further than we were. Some were spent forces (as was Macken). Grey was good when he could be arsed but wasn’t often enough. Butler (Martin), Macken and Ricketts all scored fewer goals than Cook has in the same number of games (And Butler was in League two). Hard to judge Ince and Dobson. The only name there I would say was DEFINITIVELY better than any of the crap we have now is Andy Butler. Pedigree means nothing anyway. Matt Jarvis has an England cap but it makes no difference if he is sat on the injury table for the rest of the season. Simeon Jackson had pedigree … and is one of the worst strikers I have ever seen in a Walsall shirt.
I’d also argue that the market has left us behind and that that level of player with a pedigree probably wasn’t available in numbers to Smith, O’Driscoll, Whitney and Keates to be fair.
But as I said this isn’t about comparison. I’m not sure how this has turned into me defending Keates. They all, without question, were not given the tools they needed to push this club onto it’s supposed aim. Only one manager made it work. To the point where that aim won’t even be a realistic possibility next season.
