Saddlers blog: I predict a riot

Walsall blogger Mark Jones plays Mystic Meg and gives you his predictions for the season ahead. Betting forms at the ready…

After extensive and painstaking minutes of research I’ve managed to summarise all the main pre-season predictions: -

After fairly substantial investment from their rich chairman, this could finally be Wolves’ year.

Liverpool will break their Premiership duck averaging 5, 6 or 7 goals a game, watch out for the Shrews in League 2, oh and Walsall will finish 15th.

Actually those are the predictions left over from 2007, or was it 2006? Or anytime in the last decade (apart from the 2003/04 season obviously, before anyone gets pedantic.)

I tend to think of pre-season forecasts as being like the music of Coldplay – dull, unnecessary and utterly predictable.

Man United or Chelsea for the title? You don’t say? The favourites for League One are the big names (Leeds, Leicester) or the nouveau riche (Peterborough, MK Scabs) - well there’s a surprise.

I love the way the ‘experts’ struggle when they haven’t got a clue about a particular division and plump for whoever’s just been relegated, or whoever just missed out in the play-offs.

Strangest of all is when people try and predict cup winners, in complete ignorance of how injuries, suspensions, managerial changes and form at the time will come into play.

Fans usually tend to prefer to go on gut instincts, things that might have been seen in friendlies, the kind of signings, rumours that are going round etc.

Without going overboard, what I’ve seen and heard in this last week has given me more confidence in the mighty Saddlers than at any time in the last few months.

Just to clarify that, I mean that I’m not panicking about us being the Port Fails of 2008/09 any more.

A lot will depend on how quickly this team gels and whether we pick up a couple more signings to boost the squad. I like what I’ve seen of the new boys and I think we could surprise a few people.

My worry is that, like last season, we won’t score enough goals. I’ve always thought that to stand a chance of achieving anything, a side needs a 20 goal a season forward.

This needs to be supplemented by a 10-15 goal strike partner, 10-15 goals from the wide players, at least 10 from central midfield and 10 from the back (unless you’ve got a Newcastle in the 90’s-style defence, in which case double everything.)

Whether or not we’ve got goals in the team will be apparent in the next month or so.

The other big issue for me is how Ishmel and Alex Nicholls fare this season. Promising youngsters can’t be promising youngsters forever, sooner or later the time comes for them to make an impact.

Mark Bradley did it last season, Scott Dann the year before, other youngsters have probably got at least another season after this one. I feel this has to be the year for both Ish and Alex. Personally, I hope they both make it.

In the last 10 years when we’ve played at this level, we’ve finished 2nd, 4th, 12th, 14th and 24th and we’ve always won at least one cup match.

So my expert prediction for 2008/09 is that we’ll finish in or around one of those positions and we’ll win at least one cup match. Bring it on!