The topsy-turvy world of the Saddlers

Walsall blogger Mark Jones has seen so many ups and downs already this season as a Saddler to wonder where the team go from here.

Don't know what to make of this season? Read on.

So Dwayne Mattis's late winner against his hometown club Huddersfield means we've now only lost once in six home games - in open play at least - and that was to a late winner from pacesetters Leeds.

The welcome victory was also the first time the team have come from a goal down to win for - well, over a fortnight. And only the no-show at Hartlepool has resulted in one defeat in six league outings.

Or, put another way, I still can't really decide what to make of the way things have gone so far either, except to say that this is just the way the season's going to go once again.

To be honest the Huddersfield game could've produced any one of three results and we never got anywhere near to a repeat of the fluent attacking performance on show in the first-half of the last home game against Swindon.

Equally, and probably more importantly, we never plummeted the depths of the previous Saturday in the North-East.

A few - if not many - are hinting that it's the manager or certain players at fault for the fact that we're still looking for that elusive spark to kick start things. But we are a team filled with youngsters and free transfers and that usually only leads to one thing - inconsistency.

If you needed any further evidence take a look at the last half a dozen or so games.

Dreadful against Charlton and Gillingham - the latter was easily one of the five worst games I've ever been to- we did well at Norwich and Tranmere, but were shocking against the Monkey hangers of Hartlepool before Tuesday's win.

Some of the other games, such as Leeds and Swindon, have managed to bring out the best and worst of the Saddlers in 90-odd minutes.

Darryl Westlake is a classic example of Walsall this season, a very promising young player fully deserving of his run in the side. Manager Chris Hutchings was spot on in giving him an extended run in the side, but was also right to rest him and bring back Rhys Weston. There'll be plenty more examples of this kind of pragmatism before May comes around.

For what it's worth I think we'll be OK, no better, no worse. We've already seen that there's plenty of dross in this league and, when teams under-perform, there are plenty of points there for the taking. If only we'd still got some cup games to look forward to.

If anyone wants to have a moan at the way things are, then direct it at those responsible for the position the club finds itself in, not those who have to work within those stifling constraints.

And finally - judging by the sub-3000 home supporters in attendance on Tuesday, it looks like chief executive Roy Whalley's great visionary plan to bring back the missing fans by doing nothing more than moaning about there being missing fans hasn't quite caught on yet.