Walsall players should show they care

Walsall blogger Mark Jones wonders how many of this current Saddlers side have the bottle for battle after Troy Deeney's public outburst this week.

Its official - the pope is catholic, grass is green, water is wet and, for this season at least, the play-offs are 'out of reach' for Walsall.

In a freaky and unnatural shift in time earlier this week, manager Chris Hutchings and various representatives of the local media finally worked out what those of us who pay to watch the Saddlers worked out freakin' ages ago.

As I argued last week, it wouldn't take a ridiculous amount of investment to put the club up there in the heady heights of competing with the Colchesters of this world but, then again, a decade ago it wouldn't have took a ridiculous amount of investment to have given Ray Graydon's team a decent shot at staying up.

Yet look how uppity chairman Jeff Bonser and his merry men got when paying customers consistently yet constructively tried to point that out.

The trouble is that, as I've also probably hinted at before, paying customers are a bit thin on the ground at the moment and, the way things are, its odds on there will be even less next year. Somebody needs to break the cycle and soon.

Talking of Sir Ray, he didn't have megabucks and barely had the bucks, but he could get the best out of his squad. They competed, they worked for each other, they refused to be overawed by others and they cared.

Troy Deeney's outburst at certain unnamed teammates after the tame surrender at Leyton Orient showed he's got some of those qualities. Apparently he's 'escaped punishment' for doing so, I should think so too.

Never mind all this keeping it in-house nonsense, I actually appreciate players showing a bit of passion. If it needs to be said, say it. Troy got it spot on and fair play to him for speaking out. More importantly, if any of his colleagues don't like it, then they know where the door is, don't they?

It was surprising that assistant manager Martin O'Connor, never one to shy away from speaking his mind as a player, was the one who tried to publically reel Troy in. He was probably the most Graydon-esque player never to play in a Graydon team, if you see what I mean. He had character in abundance.

But if you ask yourself the question, who else of the current squad would get into a Graydon team on character alone, who would you pick out?

I've a feeling Richard Taundry has it, Clayton MacDonald might have, Darren Byfield possibly as he was part of one of those promotion-winning teams after all. But the rest, who knows? The next 11 games would be a good time for a few individuals to find some character and prove Troy wrong.

All of which means that the timing of the launch of the new Saddlers Specials bus services, welcome as it is, couldn't have been much worse.

On the face of it five unattractive end of season fixtures are hardly likely to get the queues stretched around the blocks in Pelsall, Bloxwich or Brownhills. Which is actually a shame, because it deserves to work and I genuinely hope it does.

For the record: -

WFC 1 goes from Walsall Wood High Street at 13:15, Chester Road (13:20), Brownhills High Street (13:25), Pelsall Cenotaph (13:34) and Daw End Lane, Rushall (13:40).

WFC 2 goes from Sanstone Road, Lower Farm at 13:20, Park Road, Bloxwich (13:26), Blakenall Church (13:34), Coalpool Cemetery (13:39) and Butts Road (13:43).

WFC 3 goes from Turnberry Road, Bloxwich at 13:20, Cresswell Crescent, Mossley (13:25), Central Drive, Dudley Fields (13:30), Stephenson Square, Beechdale (13:36) and Reedswood Park (13:41).

With all three services arriving at Bescot for 13.55 - see I can get to grips with this 24-clock lark - at a cost of £3 return and £1.70 one way, it's got to be worth finding a hostelry close to one of the stops and then hopping on.

And its about time the Saddlers gave us a bit of a special to mark the occasion.