Saddlers blog: Time for the kids?

Call me old-fashioned but three points out of a possible eighteen isn’t traditionally what you’d call play-off form, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.

Three goals in six games, two of them scored by centre halves from set pieces, doesn’t help much either. Neither is going ninety minutes without a worthwhile attempt on target.

If the truth be told the old cliché that the league table doesn’t lie is spot on. Swansea are the best team we’ve played this season, Doncaster and Carlisle deserve to be battling it out for second place, Southend have finally got their act together and are a good bet for the play-offs while Forest are a classy side that lack the firepower to be higher than fourth or fifth.

Throw the muscle of Leeds into the mix and the rest of us are merely contenders/also-rans depending on your perspective. In this context spending three months in the top six was quite an achievement for the Mighty Saddlers, especially given the forgettable start we made.

At the risk of stating the obvious, yes we’d have taken our current position if we’d been offered it in September … and last May … and this time two years ago … in fact any time since the end of the Graydon era.

What no-one seems to be able to work out though is how we want the rest of the season to pan out. Dicky is making all the right noises about going all out for sixth place and, with the chance to move within a point of Tranmere on Saturday and plenty of points on offer in the last five games, I think he’d be wrong not to.

And surely we’d all still crave chasing the glory of a late dash to the play-offs wouldn’t we? However the last few weeks have highlighted the shortcomings in the squad if we were to achieve the improbable.

To me it’s more important to take the opportunity to start to get things right for next season. If there are players who aren’t part of our plans (loanees, players on short-term deals etc.) then they shouldn’t be clogging up our first team.

Despite the impotence of our performance on Saturday, there’s still mileage in giving the youngsters a go. Bradley, Nicholls and Taundry just need as many games as possible under their belts, Troy Deeney desperately needs a goal, Manny Smith needs the experience of playing alongside Gerrard and Weston and Ish just needs to remind everyone what he looks like.

So the ideal situation is this: DD picks the kids, they go out and play with no fear, we start scoring again and win our last six in style but finish seventh, just agonisingly short of that coveted last play-off spot!

You never know anything could happen; it is the start of April after all.