Walsall blogger Mark Jones analyses the job Chris Hutchings has got on his hands after being named the new boss at the Banks’s Stadium.

There a certain irony that in the week when the much-respected Mick Halsall announced his intention to leave the club, we go and play a virtual youth team at Peterborough. Seven of Saturday’s side – eight if we count Anthony Gerrard as our own – were home grown youngsters.

The average age of the team that played the bulk of the game between Chris Palmer’s nasty looking injury and Marco Reich’s surprise appearance was 22.5.

Take the Man of the Match in goalkeeper Clayton Ince out of the equation – which could well happen sometime in the next 11 days – and it was 21.

Unfortunately, just like the rest of us, Mick probably didn’t envisage all these lads just being thrown in before they were ready.

Sam Adkins did OK but it’s a big ask for a kid used to playing against 17 and 18 year olds to tough it out against some of the good pros in the Posh team.

If only we had someone like that Dean Keates fella, although we’d probably bomb him out and bring in Danny Sonner instead.

Richard Taundry has been one of our best performers this season, but filling in at right back means we lose his bite in midfield.

Mark Bradley is a player I like but he’s struggling to find any form at the moment, Alex Nicholls and Troy Deeney are suffering from being played out of position, while Manny Smith and Netan Sansara seemed to look nervous for long spells of a game.

Why do we have such a young team? Because our squad, which has some potential for sure, is threadbare.

Why is our squad threadbare? Well you need to ask our Chairman/Owner/Landlord or his beloved ‘Football Consultant’.

We started the season with a 22 man squad, only 19 of who had ever started a league game, which is smaller than most other teams in the division.

Since then one player has left in Ishamel Demontagnac, two in Paul Boertien and Marco Reich are rumoured to be on their way at the end of the month.

Added to that Anthony Gerrard is still officially on the list, and then there’s Steve Roberts and Stephen Hughes continuing their Ken Armstrong impressions.

At least we’ve had a third choice – for now – goalkeeper coming in. Phew, that’s a relief!

I’m just surprised no one’s questioned the role of Paul Taylor recently.

New manager Chris Hutchings will have to be capable of getting out on the training ground and getting the best out of the boys he’s got available to him, whilst simultaneously trying to persuade those in charge to change the habits of a lifetime.

They need to realise that, even in hard times, a football club needs to indulge in little luxuries like actually having a few players in their squad.

That’s all assuming, of course, that he’s gonna be any good.