Saddlers must sell to buy players
Friday 22nd January 2010, 11:45AM GMT.
Walsall have no cash for transfers and must sell to add to their squad in the window with manager Chris Hutchings branding the market “crazy.”
The Saddlers’ budget is stretched to the limit and, with no moves imminent, boss Hutchings reveals money for new faces must be raised by selling.
He said: “There isn’t money to go ‘bang, here you go’. If anything happens we need to get out to get in and you don’t want to sell your best players, not that there’s any interest in them at this moment.
“But your squad players and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, who is going to come in for them?
“It’s a circle you’re trying to juggle. We want better than what we have but they would cost more money than the player going out.”
The Saddlers’ only deal this month is Clayton McDonald’s free transfer from Manchester City and Hutchings reckons lower league clubs are unable to gamble on players because of their financial problems.
He said: “The market has gone crazy. The days have gone when you can have a little gamble, they’ve gone. Non-league clubs are paying big wages as well so players aren’t going to come for just a little bit, they’ll want X,Y and Z.
“You think ‘hold on a minute, you’re coming to Walsall to have a chance to play in the first team and kick on, because you’re not going to come for the money’.”
Hutchings wants to keep his star men, but believes Premier League clubs cherry pick the best lower league talent on the cheap.
He said: “In the Premier League if they are looking for lower league players and think they’ve got a chance they’ll be going there as squad players, even then they’ll want them for nothing.
“They think ‘I’m not going to invest £1million in someone who is just going to be a squad player.’ They’ll want someone who will come in and score a few goals, run the show from midfield or stop the opposition’s strikers.”
UK Sport
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Another nominee in the ‘Night time follows day – shock newspaper headline award’.
It’s obvious the club have been paving the way for this announcement for a few days. All these stories about the bad weather affecting our income have been the ideal hook on which to hang this bad news. I wonder what excuse the club would’ve used if it it wasn’t for the big freeze?
Expect Mannie out within days and some unkown player with a dodgy track record brought in for peanuts in an attempt to placate the fans.
It’s all sooooo obvious.
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Walsall Football club is dying we have a manager who is not very good at all a chairman who has no ambition and we sell all of our best players for next to nothing
bye bye walsall fc
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This has further convinced me that not renewing my 3 season tickets is the right
decision.All the the other Midland clubs are
flying while Smalsall are slowly dying,go Bonser and lets start again with a new leader someone with ambition its the only way forward.
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this will really get the fans flooding back
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afc walsall!!!!
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Cue happy clapper to say what about the poor attendances,Well we have played in a worse division than this,And played a lot worse football than this might i add and had better attendaces.People are fed up of bonsor.
Now as for manny smith and troy, Il make you an offer you cant refuse! 200k for both
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I hope the E and S man up and ask the questions that we want answering.
Predictable, boring Walsall FC.
This club will die unless Jeff Bonser goes.
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SAME OLD WALSALL.
just leave Bonser. Please, no one wants you here except yourself. Your see through, we can all see through you. I acutally think in your deluded head some fans still want you here, they dont.
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Well well well! I wondered how long it would be before we had some ridiculous excuse to sell players. Its the same year in year out. Any club with an ounce of ambition would be strengthening in our position, not weakening.
Perhaps if the clubs self proclaimed number 1 fan- Mr Bonser- would maybe use some of his personal fortune ammassed from the years of ground rent to show that he really does want Championship football, then there wouldnt be so much vitriol, apathy, and despair from long suffering fans that have had enough!!!!
Bonsor out!!!!!!!
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Well well well! I wondered how long it would be before we had some ridiculous excuse to sell players. Its the same year in year out. Any club with an ounce of ambition would be strengthening in our position, not weakening.
Bonsor out!!!!!!!
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Its the same year in year out. Any club with an ounce of ambition would be strengthening in our position, not weakening.
Bonsor out!!!!!!!
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THIS CLUB IS DYING BY THE WEEK.
Who is interested in little old Walsall FC
not the board, Bonser and whalley prove that
not the local media, nothing to report only stagnation and gloom
not the fans, now giving up completely
come on walsall fc and the town shake up before it reads WALSALL FC RIP
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Why all the moaning and doom and gloom? Clayton Macdonald is a better player than Manny Smith – I say sell Smith and use the money to strengthen the midfield. As for Deeney, he’s a decent Lg 1 striker but nothing else – we could easily replace him. Walsall have always had to sell their best players going back to Alan Clarke in the 60′s because the Walsall public is either too apathetic to support the Saddlers or too busy supporting Man U or Liverpool from their armchairs!! It’s not all Bonser’s fault – I agree we need a new chairman but I don’t see a queue forming to replace Bonser. My advice is get down to the Banks’s, support the team and stop moaning about things you can’t change. C’mon you reds!
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I’ve no problem with selling players for the right price at the right time, something we’ve not got a history of.
As for the apathy argument, Don Corleone’s got it spot on, the crowds were 50% higher when we went down in 2006. I believe people still do care even if they aren’t turning up.
… and there would be plenty of people who’d queue up to replace JWB if he was actually serious about selling and not on such a good screw.
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Typical Express and Star!
Am I dreaming? Do you not publish a Walsall edition? Might not an article with some foundation and merit be worth printing/posting or even thinking about?!!! No, it’s the usual talk of flogging off our fairly average better players for a few bob to keep ticking over. BORING!
What with the Wolves doing so well(!) I’m sure all your top reporters are busy over in the city, but maybe you could send out one of the work experience kids with a daysaver and get him over to the Banks’s stadium for a chat with big Jeff? Who knows, he might even be there and guess what, some incisive journalism might actually make for good reading?!
E & S, represent your Walsall readership and start writing some articles that are not just trotted out for the sake of filling a few columns. I for one would thank you for it – as would a few thousand other supporters who are witnessing the very slow, unnecessary decline of a great little club.
UTS.
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