Walsall blogger Mark Jones weighs up the possible consequences of a week of major change at the Banks’s Stadium.

I’m hearing all the right noises, but I can’t quite make my mind up what to think.

Walsall owner Jeff Bonser has announced that might be looking to sell the club in the next 12 months – possibly – or maybe 6 months after that – perhaps.

It comes with the usual ‘right for the club’ clause, the criterion for which is unknown, which could quite possibly render the whole thing meaningless.

But we have been here before, when the club was very publicly put up for sale in 1998.

There’s been no mention yet of what is planned for the freehold to the ground, something that Jeff is heavily tied up in. So it very much looks like a case of watch this space.

The headlines predictably were all about the £350,000 ‘shortfall,’ which is reportedly down to the big drop in gate receipts and season ticket sales compared to this time last year.

Which is hardly a revelation, given the disillusionment that has abounded the place this season. I’m sure I’m not the only supporter who noticed how close this figure is to the size of the annual rent either.

Looking at the shortfall using some very crude mathematics, I’d estimate crowds were down by around between 1000 and 1500 per game. At an average of £15 per person (again a very round figure, it could be more, could be less) over 11 home league games – this comes out at between £165,000 and £247,500.

So either the club budgeted for bigger gates than they were getting last season – which would be at best a risky strategy – or they expected to sell a lot of half-season tickets.

I’m sure some were sold, but I would be extremely surprised if anyone took up the 2008/09 offer for anything other than purely financial reason, or there’s undisclosed other stuff – matchday catering, merchandise etc – incorporated into these figures.

Interestingly, given the calls for the fans to get behind new manager Chris Hutchings and new assistant Martin O’Connor, there’s been no indication given as to how the club’s commercial side is doing in the current economic climate. Now I think this is strange, as surely it goes hand in hand with everything else at the club.

It has been reiterated that we don’t need to sell, but we might sell. The revelation that the club turned down a, not undisclosed, bid of – guess what? – £350,000 for defender Anthony Gerrard might just have been a coincidence. We may find out in the next week or so.

It has been pointed out that the new manager has to work with a restricted budget and that he is fully aware of this situation. Again this is something most of us could probably work out for ourselves.

Hutchings has a big job on his hands and it’ll be interesting to see how he approaches it. Fans are not asking for the earth and nobody expects Walsall to bring in a team full of Kaka’s, we just don’t want to be cack!

Then there was the usual forecast of administration for others, but not us. A 10-point deduction would make the early days of the Hutchings era a lot harder, although not impossible.

But administration would make life a hell of a lot more difficult for our major creditor.

Concentrating on the football side of things is what many fans have been calling for, I get the feeling that a lot of thought has gone into bringing Hutchings and especially O’Connor into the club.

If this represents a change in thinking and there is a genuine belief at boardroom level is that ‘without the support there is no football club’ then this is a very welcome move.

Glasnost at the Bescot, who’d have thought it, eh?

“‘I know the fans don’t like me and don’t want me here any more” is easily one of the most honest and self-aware comments our chairman’s ever made.

The irony is that it just MIGHT actually help change a few opinions about him. Then again this is Walsall we are talking about, everything could all go horribly wrong again at any time.

As I said before, I still can’t quite make up my mind what to make of it all.