Moaning is working as a Walsall fan

Wednesday 25th August 2010, 6:42AM BST.

Moaning is working as a Walsall fan

Walsall blogger Mark Jones has seen the Saddlers rack up two wins in a row despite his moaning – so he plans to continue until the hot streak ends.

After being incredibly negative last week, despite our 2-1 win at Brentford, what has happened? We go and sign two players then win 2-1 again!

So it’s clear that the best thing to do is keep on moaning until things start going wrong again – and then I can start being critical all over again.

Moan number one – Plymouth carved us open on far too many occasions on Saturday and, with better finishing, could have scored three or four before half time.

Moan number two – whilst we also created plenty of chances all afternoon, there always needs to be end product. Get ruthless in front of goal lads.

Moan number three – I can’t be the only one who thinks midfield is the most pressing priority now for the Troy Deeney dosh.

Matt Richards and Richard Taundry are doing the best they can and Paul Marshall looks promising – great header by the way – but we couldn’t half do with someone who could run a game in the way our assistant manager Martin O’Connor used to at this level.

These kinds of players don’t necessarily come cheap, but they tend to be the guys who separate the genuine challengers from the also-rans.

Beside, all of that money from Deeney’s available for team strengthening, isn’t it?

Moan number four – I’ve got plenty of faith in our defence but there’s not a lot of experience in there right now. Hows about an older head at the back to offer some support?

Moan number five – we have no match in midweek as it’s the second round of a cup competition, that Tranmere defeat is beginning to look even worse as the weeks go by.

But, to be serious, there are quite a few positives to report.

Rueben Reid’s debut was lively and he deserved his goal, there was pretty much a constant threat from both Julian Gray and, until his untimely injury, Steve Jones, while Manny Smith is improving all the time – some of his blocks were Ian Roper-esque and there can be no higher compliment than that.

With Darren Byfield to come back and new signing Jonathan Macken challenging for a place too, there’s an unusually large amount of attacking options for a Saddlers boss.

And despite having Reid’s pace, we didn’t do the obvious and go long ball all the time. Which was nice.

Of course the biggest moan of all  – just in case anyone had forgotten – is that we’ve just ‘celebrated’ the 20th anniversary of paying lots of rent, a figure currently running at over a thousand pounds a day.

As a nod to protests of yesteryear, a group of fans used the Plymouth game to point out that not everything is rosy at the club. It’s important that dissatisfaction and the genuine concerns of supporters remain in the forefront of everyone’s minds.

If this can be combined with backing for the team then even better.

On a related note, representatives of the Supporters Trust are due to hold the first of hopefully regular meetings with the club this week. This is a positive development.

I hope they listen carefully.


  1. 1
    Frank

    A good start and hopefully the club are not thinking they have done enough with the transfers in. Realistically, Jon Macken should have a couple of seasons in him (though he has never been a prolific goalscorer) and Rueben could either be very good or not but either way we only have him potentially until January. It has gone very quiet on the transfer front and it would be good to know more from the club about what they are intending to do. Walsall in recent years have been very poor at selling the football side of the club and unless you have access to a website there is very little advertising (despite massive advertising hordings which are used for the commercial side). At one time we had posters round the town advertising the next game. Until they address the weakness of improving crowds by marketing we are always going to be in this financial straightjacket. They dont seem to have a press officer who can research and point to the attractions of the next game (which there can be even in division one !)

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  2. 2
    Frank

    I have just checked the Express and star again – Walsall transfer rumours – week after week nothing to report – then “Former Walsall trialist Jonathan Borrajo has signed a contract with Norwegian outfit Ham-Kam”

    Surely the club could feed the press with something more interesting than this or comments from existing players which are just “padding” instead of being something we dont already know. The Express and star are obviously desperate to report something about Walsall as a club but have very little to go on.

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