Walsall blogger Mark Jones is coming round to the Chris Hutchings way after just one month of the new man in charge.

One month into Chris Hutchings’ regime and I’m ready to give a cautious thumbs up to the new manager.

A thumbs up because there are quite a few positives, cautious for the obvious reason that this is Walsall we are talking about and we all know how everything could go belly up at a moments notice.

Chris’ eight matches have yielded 12 points thanks to three wins, with three clean sheets to boot and three draws. This record would make even better reading if it hadn’t been for the tonking we got from Leicester.

We’ve also scored in every game so far and, despite the mauling from Matty Fryatt and co, we’ve got a positive goal difference under Hutchings. Interestingly we’ve not conceded in the last 20 minutes of any game either. I don’t really need to spell out the contrast with what went on before.

Clearly the policy of giving everyone a chance and playing players in the right positions has continued to work. Troy Deeney looks like a striker, Paul Boertien is probably playing as well now as at any time in his Saddlers career and Sofiene Zaaboub has made enough of an impact to force the opposition to have to actually plan how to stop him.

With fingers crossed behind my back, I can also declare that the football is getting better to watch too. Our players seem to be more composed on the ball, we’re passing the round thing better – and to each other, which is a bonus – and everything is a little less frantic.

At Hartlepool and Carlisle we plugged away and saved a point late on in both games, at Swindon we almost pulled off a comeback from three down and in the last two games – admittedly against moderate sides – we’ve won after soaking up a bit of pressure before punishing our opponents on the counter.

Chris has also affected games with good substitutions – Sam Williams, Michael Ricketts and Jabo Ibehre have all scored after coming off the bench, while bringing Dwayne Mattis on to protect the back four, just as Northampton were reverting to their traditional Plan B – hoofing more long balls into the box, which is the Cobblers way – was a great call.

Sure the return of key players from injury has helped, Stephen Hughes rarely wastes the ball and Michael Ricketts is always capable of creating opportunities that other League One plodders can only dream of.

But I also sense there is a competitive streak within the squad now, Jabo being a good example of this.

For most of the season it would have been unthinkable to see a Walsall team sheet without the big number 9 in the starting line up, whereas now you have faith in the manager if he starts without him.

The result is that a fired up Ihehre comes on for the last 15 minutes and muscles his way through to score for the first time in six games.

So what does this mean for the rest of the season? Well technically the push for the play-off’s which seems to only exist in the minds of the local media is still on, but most of us will be happy just to have something to keep us interested for the next 12 months.

There’s nothing wrong with a mid-table finish if fans can see a platform for the future.

At last week’s ‘meet the manager’ Hutchings came across really well, putting the skills gleaned from his days as a Premier League boss to good effect, in dealing with questions diplomatically and in a courteous and considered manner.

He was good natured but beneath that I also sensed a steely determination to make a real go of this job.

That’s got to be good for the Saddlers. Nice one Chris.