Walsall fan forum: Full transcript from Ben Boycott, Leigh Pomlett and Ben Sadler

Ben Boycott's opening statement:

BB: I do apologise for not being there in person, some matters in my personal life made that difficult. Everybody involved in the club genuinely care about the club and genuinely want what is best for the club. Everyone of those were and still are desperate for promotion, desperate to give our supporters special moments to cheer about. We're absolutely gutted with the way things played out from February to April. 

I would just everybody to remember that context. Many may not agree with our decisions at times, just know that they're made with the best interest of the club at heart. Our recruitment last summer and our recruitment over the last number of years, we had a good start to the season. 

Coming out of January, it obviously all went wrong. I know the stats on the nature of the collapse, how significant it was and everyone at the club was very disappointed with how the season ended. That has led to some significant soul searching for everybody. On behalf of everybody at the club, we're sorry that we couldn't deliver the promotion that all of you and all of us so desperately wanted. 

I won't fault our intentions, our effort, our engagement or our investment. But obviously the simple fact is that the results from February until April were not good enough. I am the ultimate leader of the organisation. So responsibility for that comes down to me and I take responsibility and accountability for it. We're committed to learning lessons from it and getting better. At the same time, I realise a lot of things over the last several years have gone really well and we want to maintain those going forward. 

The impacts of that downturn has had tremendous emotional impact on our supporters. We see that, obviously it's devastating for hopes for promotion to reach such heights and then not come to fruition. Of course, that was very upsetting and I'm sorry. It has other impacts throughout the club as well. It makes it difficult to keep the squad together and that's led to more of a rebuild this summer than I hoped we were going to have. 

Although I do think the guys have made some good progress in that area. It's a very significant impact for Trivela as promotion means more revenue, more opportunity and what we missed out on was significant, as was the reputational damage. Everybody is hurting from it. You're hurting and I'm hurting, and at the same time there is no mercy whatsoever in football. There's no time off, the new season comes just the same and we have to learn, move forward and prepare. 

That's what we've been doing these last several weeks. On Nathan Lowe's departure I sat in our last fans form over in the Locker and shared that we were working very closely with Stoke. With regular communications and always on the basis that Nathan Lowe was going to remain at the club. Prior to that, we'd been quite frustrated by the impact of midseason loan recalls from the previous seasons. I shared that night, it felt different. 

That we had a season long-loan of a 19-year-old from a decent Championship club, that are prospects of maintaining the loan would be stronger. I said that and in the end I proved to be wrong. We were told that Nathan would be staying with us right up until the final hour when a managerial change was made and a recall happened. Of course, we had contingency plans, we had striker targets, and the reality is with the timing and nature of the recall. 

The truth is that we missed out on a number of targets in the first part of January because many of those players didn't feel they'd get meaningful playing time with Nathan in the squad. That made January a lot more difficult for us. We also took some key injuries around the same time and the bottom line is that January did not do what we wanted. We didn't sleepwalk through it or assume that promotion would be easy. 

It was honestly the hardest working January that we've had since I've been involved in the club. There were a lot of late night and countless hours to try and push things over the line. The player budget was increased in January from what it had been previously. We tried to solve the striker issue. We brought an experienced one with Ellis Harrison, another high pedigree loan in Ethan Wheatley and a long-term target of a different profile in Levi Amantchi. 

And we made a club record offer for a fourth which dragged on for several weeks and in the end was batted back to us that it wasn't going to happen at any price. That was a very frustrating experience. We also tried to get some cover in the midfield with a few loans and we kept our team together as best as we could. We fended off offers for four of our players and an offer for our head coach. 

We spent money and declined incoming money with a similar philosophy that made us successful in previous windows. But bottom line is that our efforts in January didn't work. I think a bit of naivety showed on our part. We brought in three strikers but we never established the same sort of effectiveness or chemistry that we had before. We brought in midfielders but with the injuries and fatigue that rolled in, we needed a bit more quality in there and a bit more of a refresh. 

Honestly the squad size bulked by a fair bit and I thought that negatively affected the chemistry. We probably got a little bit panicky and maybe got too many players in the building. Inside all of that, I think we just entered a crisis of confidence that spiralled through the second part of the year. We had some key players suffering from fatigue and the reinforcements really weren't panning out in some ways. Some fine margins that were going for us started going against us. 

Anxiety and negativity settled in around the club and players began to fear failure. We had a young squad, which is good in a lot of ways, but I think our lack of experience showed a little bit down the stretch. Ultimately, it was fine margins, but those things affected how clinical we were in front of both goals. So you had loads of situations where performances were still OK but things didn't go our way. I don't prescribe it to luck because I don't really believe in luck, but I think that crisis of confidence really affected those fine margins. 

There are a series of key lessons that I'd say we take from that. I think youth is good but we need to strike the right of experience versus youth, particularly reflecting on January in terms of quality versus quantity. One of the outcomes of that is we're creating a brand new full-time position on the first team recruitment side. Loans are important, they make us better and we'd be foolish not to use them. Looking at the recall window in those loans, if they have to be in there, to have them shorter and earlier in the window. 

So if we have to make adjustments then we have time to do that. Continued investment in the academy is critical and giving those players meaningful time in cup games. The loan sources for key positions. We're focusing on more higher divisions rather than League One or League Two loans. 

We've been burned in the past on that. This year we've gone another level up and got another exciting young loan striker from the Premier League and added a permanent in that area as well. The last lesson learned from me is that I think there could've and should've been more communication from the board early on after the Wembley final. 

For that I do genuinely apologise. Obviously we had a lot to work through with the released and retained lists and beginning to prepare for next season. Additional communication was probably needed so I do apologise for that. I would say Mat Sadler is a very good man. He's an incredibly hard worker, first in at the training ground and last out. And a very talented young coach who commands tremendous respect in the division and loyalty from his players. 

He is our head coach going into this next season, he has the full support of the board. He has been very reflective coming out of the season and has continued to learn and grow. Anyone who has watched Trivela's track record knows that we're not afraid to part ways with a coach if we think it's best and that we place high value on continuity and stability in that role, even when it's not easy. 

We had a run of results this past season that weren't good enough. Throughout that, at no point, and I surround myself by people that advise me, were people on that group saying it was the correct decision either short-term or long-term to part ways with our head coach. Long-term I think we have the right person, and short term, I don't feel a managerial change when we were in the top three would've changed the outcome. 

Mat commands tremendous respect, loyalty and affection from his players, and as a board we have our finger on the pulse at the training ground enough to know that a managerial change at that time would've been very demoralising to that group. We felt they needed our support and not our disruption, as we were really only ever one win away from promotion. 

Would Trivela still be interested in Walsall if they were relegated to the National League? 

BB: Yes, for many of the reasons I've shared of why we're in the project over the years. As far as a strategy, I have a VP of football who reports to me and works directly with Mat Sadler on a day-to-day basis. They're working actively on our recruitment strategy and our academy strategy. 

So we keep a very close eye on results and they'll have to make adjustments as things go along throughout  the year to try to make sure it goes as well as possible. The strategy is to recruit as effectively as we possibly can and those guys work closely together to make results as best as they can. 

Will the standard fall next season and will the club sack Mat Sadler if the season starts poorly?

Leigh Pomlett: I don't think the standard will fall. We're pretty sensible and possibly even lenient management team. If you look at successful football clubs, the thing they're based on is stability. Clubs that changed their managers three times last year got relegated. We have no intention of doing that, there is more risk in change than keeping generally. I'd prefer to keep and work the manager than change. 

I come from a background where I've sacked three so I'm not afraid to do it and I know that Ben is not to afraid to do it if the time came. But we don't anticipate that being the case. Despite the fact the second half of the year was horrible and you know I've been watching this lot since I was 5. I have never felt that low in my life watching this football team, despite the fact that we finished fourth, which is an extraordinary thing to say. 

Did I have a conversation with Ben about changing Mat? If I'm honest, I did not. Because I work with Mat, I see him at the training ground and I can compare him to other managers that we've had. I can see how hardworking he is, I can see how talented he is and he is pretty easy to work him. He gets it and others are much more difficult to work with. I have no doubt that it's the right decision to keep although I do understand the frustrations and I also understand the people that think we shouldn't have done. 

In some ways it would've been easier if Ben and I came out and said, 'right, we've sacked Mat Sadler'. Quite a few of you in the room would say thank god we've taken some action. My view then and my view now is that would've been the wrong thing to do. In the last forum at the Locker, I was hammered that we were going to lose Mat Sadler. Make sure you don't lose Mat Sadler! So we didn't lose Mat Sadler and now I'm hammered for the fact we kept him. 

So you can't win, you just have to make judgements as a chairman about what you believe to be the right thing to do regardless of how unpopular you might be. The answer is we should've kept Mat Sadler and we did. Whether we're right or not, the first half of the season will show. There will come a point where I patience will run out. It ran out with Michael, it ran out with Matt Taylor. My patience is not endless but it's our judgment that Mat is here. 

Do you think it was a mistake to give Mat Sadler a three-year contract? 

LP: No. You can blame Mat for the second half of the season, but you've got to blame him for the first half. There was huge interest in taking him from other clubs. In fairness to Mat, he wanted to stay with Walsall. We saw a long-term future with Mat in charge of the football club despite the fact that the second half was rubbish. 

He deserves huge credit for getting us into the position that we did and he has had to do an awful lot of soul searching. Nobody reflects more on his performance than Mat does. 

BB: When we gave the contract extension, we were in the middle of a nine-match winning streak. We were heavily criticised for not securing the manager. I really believe in stability. I've been heavily criticised on multiple fronts for keeping a manager on board for longer than some felt I should and ultimately it's come good in multiple different situations. 

I very much believe in the manager. I still stand by the decision and I think he's a great long-term fit to take us forward. 

Can you really reframe the season as missing out in the final minute of the last game? 

Ben Sadler: I would have to look at it as the whole season and ultimately we fell short and everyone shared the disappointment on that run. But on the flip side, we had put ourselves in such a strong position. We were the highest scorers in the division. For every pound we spend on player wages, we got more points than anyone in the division over the course of the season. That's our reality. 

We didn't have a top three budget, it's not to say that there wasn't significant investment and it's our highest budget in League Two. I talk about how crazy football is and it's broken as a sport and an industry. But what we got out of that squad, the sum was far in excess of its parts individually. 

I accept that we were miles clear. We had no right to be as far clear as we were. That was unbelievable and the club had never won that many games on the bounce in the league. Again, not on a top three budget, not on a top seven budget. Mat Sadler and Matt Jordan found a way of recruiting, organising and coaching the team to deliver something exceptional. I've had that thrown at me that it was because of Nathan Lowe and it was a bit of luck. 

So was it just a bit of luck that we didn't get over the line? No, we're acknowledging it wasn't, it was a combination of things. I get that we look at it as two parts. It was a part of unbelievable performance, and the fact that it swung so much in the last three months of the season, it hasn't really happened before in football. 

But now we sit here and reflect over the entire season. I have to take my emotion out of it and look at it objectively. Did we outperform budget? Yes. Did we have some unbelievable times and some results we had no right to have? That nine-match winning run was unbelievable. I understand it's not as simple as a kick of a ball. But our reality was in the 95th minute of the last game, we were promoted, but football has a way of biting your on the a*** and it did. That hurts.

Will we be signing proven League Two talent and does Silkeborg investment impact Walsall?

BB: What did Trivela say when we came in because there were promises made? We said that we'd aquire the freehold on behalf of the club so that it was no longer paying recent to a former owner. That we would renovate and reopen the Saddlers Club and that we would strategically invest as an accelerator. 

If I flip back and do a scorecard on what we've done, I think we've met those promises and we have invested in the three areas that we said we would. Probably the one departure from what we promised three years ago is that we've increased the player budget materially more than I expected or projected at that time. 

We've done so in a thoughtful way and our recruitment strategy has been to get more young players to fit our style of play. We have had success because we've finished better every season than the previous season. 

It didn't work in January and we didn't get over the line the way we wanted, but on balance over the past six windows there have been signs of progress and we're going to carry that forward. As far as Silkeborg, we were going to make equity investments in stable, well-run football clubs, and that's really a fully separate investment. 

It doesn't affect the amount of resource we allocate to Walsall in a positive or negative quite frankly. It is it's own investment and our business case has never been to dump money unsustainably into the player budget. I don't subscribe to it and we've never done it. 

So we'll continue to try and take Walsall forward as best as we can in all areas. We will continue to invest in the football side and there are several signings in the works right now that we're excited about. 

What's the new policy on the head of recruitment? 

BS: The recruitment is done by Mat Jordan and Mat Sadler with an external company that have worked with Trivela across all of the clubs and worked with us. We have an exceptional deal in place with them where we have access to a database and a process, which if we did it ourselves, would cost five to six times as much. I reiterate that over six windows, this is the third window that I've been here, I believe we're recruiting better, more thoughtfully and more strategically than we ever have. 

Everything is with the benefit of hindsight. We might finish top this year or we might finish bottom. Everyone will look at this summer and go it was either brilliant or it was rubbish. Matt Jordan and Mat Sadler work relentlessly, and I get dragged in at various stages. 

I'm not asking for sympathy, but the reality is that we're on calls on day. We work American time as well so we're on calls at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night every day for weeks on end. It's a process, we know what we're looking for as a defined model with how we set-up, how we play, what we're looking for in each position in terms of physical capacity, key attributes. The great thing about that is that it's completely aligned with what our academy is doing. 

So the academy are crystal clear of what we're require at first team level. Rob Williams and his team have done an unbelievable job in the last three years of recruiting and developing players with that in mind. So that when they get to 18, hopefully there's more and more year on year that can go in our team with the way that we want to play. 

Ultimately, the responsibility is with Matt Jordan and Mat Sadler, and us as a board in terms of supporting Mat and signing off on any deals and getting them done when we need to. We are going to add to the infrastructure. We're going to add a full-time recruitment co-ordinator who is going to form an integral part of that group. 

We've got someone in mind who is highly talented, who we knew and have worked with before. That will be after the end of this window in time for January. That will add another piece to the puzzle there and we believe that with the data-led model and you supplement that with the contacts and speaking to people about personalities, then we feel we're moving in the right direction.

One thing we're not going to say and never will say is that we're going to get everyone right. That doesn't happen anywhere but window on window, do I think we're getting more right than wrong? Yes, in terms of players coming in. 

We sat there on 3rd February, and at the time, I think everyone felt quite good about what we'd done. We were not able to get everyone, but I heard the feedback, and we all felt that we had added experience up front, a boy who'd played in the Premier League against Arsenal the year before to replace Lowe. A different option in Levi Amantchi. We brought in some cover in midfield, we kept hold of our players which we spoke about. As we said at the time, we'd be judged at the end of the season and we all know what happened. 

Why did Walsall not start Danny Johnson more? 

BB: Mat Sadler is the one whose selecting the team with constant communication with Matt Jordan and there is a whole lot that goes into those decisions. It's based on the individual player, it's based on the combination of 11 players that give us the best chance to win the game. 

Not just the player's individual statistics, but the team's statistics when the player starts. And frankly as we've learned this year, it's a confidence and culture heavy game, and so culture plays a part of it as well. Based on that, they make their decisions, and Danny has signed in the National League and we wish him the best at his new club. 

LP: The only answer we can give you is that Mat and Matt works on who represents the club on a Saturday afternoon, and they chose not to play Danny Johnson in that attacking role. It's not my job to pick the team but if you're going to back the manager then you have to back his choices. 

But he would not play Danny Johnson for all sorts of reasons. There were occasions where Danny did play from the start and he didn't play well at all. Danny was a goal scorer but he just would not play him. There's no answer that I can give you that will placate you other than Mat and Matt Jordan would not play him in the way that they wanted to play. 

Just picking up on a point about Nathan Lowe, that simply isn't true. He was staying with Walsall Football Club until the very last minute. Nathan came to see me on the day that he was going and it was a shock to him and his father as well came in. 

It was a shock that he was recalled because their attacker that they had on loan from Leicester City had got recalled. They didn't expect that to happen and that caused a chain reaction, and we lost Nathan Lowe. 

Why was Douglas James-Taylor not recalled? 

LP: Mat did not think bringing DJT back would be helpful. That was his decision. I discussed it with him on many occasions but I cannot choose who plays on a Saturday. All we can do is back the manager. You can disagree with it all you like, but that's the fact of the matter. 

Would I have played DJ more as a supporter? Possibly, but it's not my job to do that. It's his and he chose not to. Walsall play this relentless, fast pressing game. That's how we got to where we got, the one sort of football we knew DJ could not play. 

What is the situation with Harry Williams? 

LP: As you know now, you won't see him next season. Last season, he went through a period of not playing very well. Let me start off by saying that I think Harry Williams is one of the most talented young centre-halves in the league. He went through a phase around Christmas time or just after where he was playing poorly. 

I remember a particular game at Gillingham where he was very poor. Harry had a poor two or three games where he was taken out of the team then he was brought back and he was much better. What we have to remember though with Harry and with other young players in the squad. 

This is their first season playing professional football in League Two and they were showing signs of real fatigue. Harry was one of them. I think he didn't play for a period of time because he wasn't playing very well, then he came back and played extremely well. Then tragically he ruptured his Achilles in the play-off final, so sadly we won't see him next season I don't think. 

BS: We've offered him a new contract, he didn't say he wanted to leave by any stretch of the imagination. The injuries happened in the last game of the season. It's a contract that works for the club. We're not naive to put something at place which is going to put the club at any risk or affect our ability to do anything else. 

I do fundamentally believe it's the right thing to do. We're duty bound to undertake his rehabilitation anyway. It's part of the regulations if someone gets injured playing for you, you have to rehabilitate them unless they move somewhere else. 

Obviously when you're injured for a long time, moving somewhere else isn't top of the agenda. We hope to see him back on the pitch and contributing to us in years to come. It's right to be good people and other people will see that. 

They'll look at Walsall and think this is a club that looks after their players and are trying to do things right. There's an offer on the table. He may accept, he may not. That's his prerogative. It's not a 12-month contract we've put in front of him. 

What does Matt Jordan do? 

BB: Matt is our VP of football. He works really closely with Mat Sadler, but the head coach in our current structure is responsible for making final decisions on what players we sign and what players are on the team sheet. 

Matt Jordan is a close confidant and a great advisor to Mat. Yes, he helps him set the style of play, he works heavily with him on the recruitment. He has been very reflective about what happened as well, and all of us, as I've said before, are committed to learning lessons from it. 

BS: In my opinion, Matt Jordan is an extraordinary individual when you get to know him. The work that he puts in, the diligence he works with. He has been pivotal in the recruitment model and spends a lot of time aligning the academy with the first team. 

I have absolute faith that Matt Jordan is a top operator and makes us better. 

Why were Walsall so reliant on Jamille Matt last season?

BS: Jamma is an unbelievable professional and a Walsall boy. He's wonderful to have around the place and he did have a big impact. He was our second top scorer. I think everyone acknowledges we had to use him far more than the intention ever was. 

That's a combination of the way we like to play: one bigger striker who can be a target, and one playing off them. You've seen from our recruitment that we've bought in Aaron Pressley who will occupy that sort of role. 

Then we've got Jonny Stuttle playing off him at the moment. Jamma is an unbelievable warrior. He did what he was asked and he was put out on that pitch for 50 games at 35-years-old. At times he needed a break, but when we mixed it up and tried other things which we did, it didn't quite work. 

The strikers we brought in during January, the chemistry didn't click, we didn't have that same dynamic that Lowey had before. That wasn't through not intending to be the case. It just didn't happen. Ethan Wheatley had played in the Premier League the year before and we hoped that was going to work. It just didn't click for a number of reasons. 

I accept we didn't score more goals than the opposition in enough games between February and April. Because if we did, we'd have won and we'd have gone up, but we did also finish as top scorers in the division over the season. 18 of those were provided by Nathan Lowe, so there was still a lot of goals in the team. 

I would probably contest that we were struggling in front of goal because no one scored more than us in League Two last year. We had to rely on Jamma more than the intention was, but he never once did anything other than try his absolute best. 

That's why we've identified Aaron who will no doubt benefit from playing and learning off Jamma. He's ours for three years now which is great. 

Have we got a continued commitment to accessible and community engagement?

BS: Yes, there is absolutely a commitment to that. We've come out top in the Family Excellence Awards for the EFL in the division. We're seventh in the EFL overall, so we're recognised by an independent body as improving and putting on that experience. We put on a number of ticket initiatives last season. 

The last two games were a tenner, we listened to your feedback about the junior prices being too high so we brought those down midseason. We froze season tickets at a point of which we could've well been participating in League One the next year. We've frozen the season ticket prices year on year so I think our commitment there is in our actions. We're absolutely going to do everything we can, while accepting we can't do everything. 

But it's going to be what can we do on the road map and measurables in promotion. You're either promoted or your not, so the measurable will be do we go up. Are we setting off the season wanting to get promoted? Yes, of course, but I'd caveat that with the fact I think 24 teams will probably say that. 

I truly believe that everything that Trivela are doing is the right way to sustainably run a football club. They're investing, more money has been put into this football club than it ever has amongst football, infrastructure and other areas, so we can grow. But the attendance on average, we've got a midtable attendance when you compare us to League Two. 

We've got midtable revenues.We get benchmarking data from the Football Club and our revenues are midtable. Our wage budget will also sit in there. Without Trivela investing and underwriting a football budget, it would be the bottom of the division. 

That is the reality of football, that's where it's now in the last three or four years. I spoke about it in my video. That wage budget we have now is the most we've ever had in League Two, that sits us in midtable. 

Do I believe that with a strategy, with a plan, with stability, that we can outperform that and kick on? 

Absolutely, and that's what we'll be pushing. We don't accept just because we've got a midtable budget that that's where you've got to finish, but there's some teams that buck the trend and blow it out the water. 

So what we're focusing on to be sustainable in the long-term is: Can we grow the crowd? Which in turns grows revenue, which in turn can be reinvested in all areas of the club, particularly in the football. 

Because we acknowledge that's the thing that makes everything tick. We're a football club and we have to focus on getting the football right. BB: The comment about how long Walsall have waited for promotion. It goes back to my earlier comments about how desperate everyone at the club is desperate for success. 

I do think that Mat and Matt have set forward a good plan. For the last three years, I don't think it's fair or correct to promise football outcomes or to promise promotion. I don't think you'd respect me if I did that because it's not completely controllable. 

LP: It's interesting to know that the teams with the biggest budget in League Two last year finished below us, way below us, and one of them got relegated. I'm not going to name the club, it could've been someone else, but it wasn't Morecambe. 

I think what we try to do is set a budget that's sensible, competitive and sustainable, but at the same time recognising that buying your way out of League Two isn't an option. The teams that did get promoted this year by no means were the biggest budgets in this league. I believe next year will be the same. You can throw money at a football club if you choose to and you will lose it. That's not a sustainable or sensible thing to do because ultimately that only goes one way. 

I wouldn't allow that to happen as chairman and I certainly wouldn't advise Ben as co-chairman to go down that particular route. One of the things I do is work with the EFL on the future of football and some of you may have noticed that the football regulator got approved yesterday by the government. 

That will change football forever, that will mean a different future for a football club like ours, than we've seen for the last 100 years. Because the football model that exists in the EFL is broken. It's just broken. On average, the losses in this football world are just horrendous, and we just cannot sanction that as a management team. 

It's just a stupid way to do anything, and the world will change and begin to recognise that. We're not talking about the clubs with high-profile problems at the moment. A lot of clubs in the EFL are in financial trouble, we're not one of them, but a lot of them are. 

We cannot as your board allow Walsall to do that. We want to competitive, we want to be successful, but we're not going to be stupid about it and find our club in serious trouble, which a number are. And I'm not just talking about the two that are in the press today, I'm talking about quite a few more, and I won't allow that to happen. 

If we did throw money at the football club, and say let's double the budget. Well, that's what another club did this year. Enjoy the National League!

Were negotiations open with the players to sign their contracts at the same time as Sadler? 

BS: Yes, we entered negotiations in October for a number of players to try to secure them on longer deals. Again, we were right up by the top of the division. Despite the fact that we'll all say that agents and players can't talk to other teams, it happens 365 days a year. 

Everyone knows what's going on next summer before the season kicks off. That's the reality of football, things change and things come up, but people look that far ahead. Contract negotiations with six players opened in September-October and into November. We secured none of them I don't think, if I'm being honest. 

And that was on the basis that we put improved deals in front of players that we wanted to put them in front of. The feedback understandably was: let's wait and see how we get on. If we're in League One then no doubt they'll be knocking on the door for a few more quid, so why would we sign up for a long-term deal now when we know at that point that the player had the power. 

We revisited that in January and February, and got the same answer. Then what happened, happened, and a number of them have moved on to other opportunities, and are all earning really good money elsewhere. We put our best foot in front of them and there's unbelievable money being thrown about elsewhere, which we're just not able to compete with. 

So on that basis, we shake hands and we find the next one of them. We go and look on the market, and we're confident that the boys we're bringing in are really good and we start that cycle again. 

What do you think is going to happen with the gates next season? 

BS: We've had the best gates that we've had in 20 years since we were in the Championship. I think the home amount is comparable to the amount we got in those Championship years. I walked in at Morecambe and we had 500 season ticket holders. 

We put a scheme in place and I turned to everyone and said we're going to get to 2,000. One guy laughed at me and said: 'You'll never do that'. It made me determined to do it and I think we got to 2,800 that year. Trivela have come in, I've come in, and we've set targets of increasing the crowd. 

We met them this year, our target is to increase them again. Appreciating that a lot of it is linked to what goes on out there, but a huge part is trying to keeping it affordable and trying to improve the experience. The engagement that James Gibbins and his team are putting on through the week and the content that we're putting out. We're trying to make people feel like the club is more accessible than it ever has been. We're not perfect, we're not there. It's a working thing, but why can't we have 8,000 people in here one day. 

I'm not saying this season, I'm not saying in three years. Five years ago, our average crowd this season would've put us clear in fourth in League Two. Right now, it puts us in with a host of teams in 10th. All of these teams have been able to increase their crowd while still staying in League Two. 

I absolutely believe that we can keep kicking it on. As we work through everything, can we get that crowd to 6,000? Can we get it to 6,500-7,000? Then if we get it to 8,000, that changes what we can invest into the football and the infrastructure. I take a long-term view over this. Of course, we want more people in tomorrow and our first game of the season against Swindon. But we're moving in the right direction in terms of the crowds. 

They're the highest they've been in 20 years. There's not really been a time in history where I can see there's been significantly more. So I'm really optimistic, I'm really enthused. I've got a group that has been unbelievable and are on the same page. Everyone wants this place rocking because those last three or four games were fantastic. In terms of, I walked out for Port Vale and it was white hot the atmosphere. We want that every week. 

Will Elicha Ahui ever play for Walsall?

BS: Elicha joined on a free transfer and all of his wages have been picked up by Drogheda. I would contest that we said we paid a fee for Elicha. He's now injured unfortunately, but we have got an option on him for next season, which we'll assess him once he's back on the pitch. 

On tabling a club record offer in January...

BS: We see him as having potential to come in and impact the team here, but he's out for a long time over there. You mention Freddie [Draper] there, it would be completely remiss of me to mention names. 

But we tabled a club record bid for a striker that we probably put on the table a little bit more than what that player was worth whoever that might have been. We got to a point where his parent club said: 'He's not leaving'. 

These clubs don't need the money, so if they say he's not leaving, exactly like we did. There's not an amount you can put in front of us that's going to change that. We want to keep this team together because at that point we were on nine wins in a row. 

We can't force a team and a player who is under contract somewhere to part with that.

BB: It was a significant offer and there was not a counter made that we were unable to meet. We were told that there was no offer because the player was staying. It would be inappropriate offer or specifics, but it was a significant offer.

Is Darren Byfield in charge of bringing the academy players into the first team? 

BS: It probably goes back to why haven't they played [Ronan Maher and Charlie Wragg]. So what Leigh said around the head coach makes that decision and he didn't feel they were the right players to put in at that time. But as I touched on, we've done a lot of work reviewing the academy this summer. 

Matt Jordan and I have conducted a thorough review and everything has been on the table about what direction we want to go in. We believe that Rob Williams and his staff have done an unbelievable job in moving that academy on in the last three or four years. 

And we're now at a point where we need to create opportunities for these young players within the first team environment. Absolutely balancing that against the fact that it's a results based business, and we'll never tell the manager he's got to play players in a certain game. 

But we've got to do what we can around the training ground and put opportunities in place, using things like the Vertu Trophy. Can we bed some players in? One or two might come in and do exceptionally well, and then that's the start of a great career. We'd love nothing more. 

Ronan Maher has signed a two-year deal this summer which we're delighted with. It's a big season for him and we hope he'll get opportunities at times, and when he does, he's got to take them. That's a story we'd all love to see come off. He's been here from a young age and developed through. What we're now focusing on as a group is ensuring that that synergy is there. 

Darren Byfield is the link between the under-18s and the first team. He's in constant communication with Rob, they train next to us on a number of occasions through the week and they do have opportunities to come into first team training and impress. 

The coaching staff are invested in the academy, they understand the importance of it. It lost its way for a period of time. Historically, it lost its way for a period of time. It was previously a very proud academy system that's provided opportunities to a number of players over the years. 

We're determined to sensibly get it back to where it was and we believe that's going to be important in the long-term vision of the club as well. 

BB: I do think the academy lost its way for a period of time, but it's very important to us and it's a significant investment every year for Trivela right now. These things take time, so there are some changes made to recruitment and some changes made to structure by Matt Jordan working with Rob Williams. 

Those things don't yield instant results. What I'm hearing is that in the coming age group, we have some promising opportunities, but that's something we want to keep focusing on and keep investing in as we go along. 

LP: I'm critical of myself and the club for not progressing players through the academy and not taking more risks than we have done. I know it was only against Leamington, but I was delighted to see five or six academy players on the pitch in the second half in particular. Two goals were scored by Charlie Wragg. 

It's something we should've focused on and we need to bring players through the academy. Because if I look back through my time, the most successful player to come through the academy went to Brentford [Rico Henry in 2016]. We need another one of those. That helps hugely and justifies the academy, but it helps the finances of the club. 

We haven't really done that sufficiently and successfully in my own personal view, and I criticise myself for that, as well as the management teams that I've had. But it is changing and I was really encouraged by the friendly against Leamington. We do look really promising. We can't tell Mat who to play, but we'd be very disappointed if these players don't appear in the Vertu Trophy this year. That means we might take some risk in the Vertu Trophy of not making progress. Well sorry, let's have a go with some really young players and see how they get on with it. If we lose, we lose, but let's have a crack at it. 

I look at the Premiership and I look at clubs such as Brighton and Brentford. We're not in that group, of course we're not, but in terms of model, that's what I'm looking to create. They're very heavily data-driven. We're not that data-driven but we're a lot more data-driven than we've ever been in the past in terms of players. 

The data work that we do is the reason Connor Barrett is here. That came from that process of finding athletic, right-sided players, who're reasonably good in the air, strong and powerful. We made a list of two or three players, of which Connor Barrett was top of that particular list. So the process does work, which is much more successful than having an agent knocking on your door and saying I've got a right wing-back that is good in the air. 

Every good business has an exit plan. How do you expect to get any return long-term on your investment? 

BB: I've said from the outset that Trivela is a group of likeminded, legacy focused people, who want to invest over a long time horizon. 

As far as an exit plan, we don't have one. We don't have a view to sell the club in the future, but we do believe over the course of the long-term, if we think in decades not years, that we can build value. That we can ultimately create a sustainable model that is able to be sustainable and is able to add value for the long-term. 

Echoing what Leigh said about the football model in the UK being broken. I think it is and a lot of the work that Leigh is doing along with the independent regulator will help that. Football has changed in England, even in the last three years. Some of the way clubs are being managed is entirely unsustainable. 

I think it's probably not great for the game long-term, but there is active work going on a governmental level to change that. Financially since our involvement began three years ago, it has become difficult, but in no way does that change our commitment to the club or the community. 

Would we have been able to compete financially if we had been promoted to League One? 

BB: Yes, obviously we were very hopeful of promotion to League One this year and we would've been able to compete financially in League One. We were planning on that. Promotion to League One would mean much higher demands in terms of being competitive with the player budget. 

But it would also mean higher revenue and the distributions would go up 50 per cent. But the much larger away followings would put more revenue on the gate and more opportunities to generate revenue. And there would be more investment from the ownership group and all of those things together would mean we could compete at League One level. 

What is the situation with Drogheda and Silkeborg? 

BB: I've written in detail publicly about that situation and taken ownership of it. It's a very frustrating situation. Regulations changed this year and in my view the implementation and communication of those changes by UEFA left a lot to be desired. I think ultimately Drogheda was made an example out of for the purpose of some political shifting in European football. 

At least one administrator at CAS agreed with us, as that was a split decision. But unfortunately Drogheda was disqualified from Europe due to multi-club ownership regulations, despite us putting forward the same options that have always been available to other clubs. 

We weren't alone with that. There's been another team disqualified for the same reason this year, as UEFA is taking a much different stance than they have in previous years. And based on news reports today, it looks like there maybe another club who will suffer a similar situation. I strongly feel that the implementation of it was inconsistent between large clubs and small clubs. 

On the flip side of that, it's Trivela's responsibility to ensure changes are made with or without notice, or enforced consistently. That's why that's up to me and that's why I've taken ownership for it and apologised for it. We're making changes from a Trivela Group level from a capacity standpoint to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Drogheda has lost significant revenue for that reason. We're going to cover the shortfall just to say we won't allow the club to go bankrupt as a result of this issue. They lost money last year, and based on that will lose money again this year, and Trivela will provide operations funding to cover that in the exact same way we do for Walsall. Where that money comes from is from our investment group. 

Why is Mat Sadler not at tonight's forum? 

BS: Mat isn't here because he hasn't been invited to be here by us. We think there's enough to be talked about as it is. I would caveat that Mat has a microphone put in front of him three times a week and often more with the local press. So there's plenty of communication there. 

LP: Mat spoke to me last night and he would've been here, but we chose not to invite him. He certainly isn't scared of being here. It would've been awkward for him but the one thing I do know is that he is incredibly resilient. 

He would've sat along here and he would've not shirked that responsibility under any circumstances. 

Why was there a lack of flexibility in terms of changing formation? 

LP: It's a fair challenge. I've had that same conversation with him about that flexibility. He's strictly 3-5-2 man and he did change it on a few occasions to try and get some more out. The wing-backs were tiring and it's a fair challenge that he could've made that switch [with Nathan Asiimwe] earlier. 

I see the stats of the players and interestingly sometimes clubs who play Walsall exchange data on that particular game that they've played. In the first half of the season, Walsall outran everybody, that's what they did. 

There maybe a fair challenge in the fact that you can do that for so much for so long. It's way he has chosen to play and our running stats are pretty phenomenal, and normally way above the team that we play against. Interestingly not possession based, as you saw. 

Possession stats were low, but the work rate and the effort of closing down. I don't think we beat teams, I think we mobbed them. I can't rewrite history. I sit there and watch the same games as you. I think there is a certain fatigue. 

Did we react to that fatigue quickly enough? Maybe we should've been a bit sharper on that. The team is the second youngest team in the EFL and that includes having Jamma and Albert Adomah in the squad. 

So it's a very young squad and some of them like Connor, it was his first year of that intensity. It was the same with Jamie and with Harry Williams too. He was playing for Alvechurch, so it's a hell of a jump. 

BB: Earlier in the season with George Hall and Jack Earing, we had the ability to affect the midfield more during games and the ability to make some mild formation changes, such as flipping the midfield. We had success with that and I think injuries to both those two players really hurt us. I've been really critical tonight about our midfield recruitment in January. 

You saw from George Hall's return to full fitness that we were able to affect the shape of the midfield a little bit more and had three really good consecutive wins as a result of that. 

Is our formula similar to Peterborough United? 

LP: Five years ago, I stood on this stage when I bought Walsall and I said regard me as a transitional chairman because I have no intention of being here very long. The reason I said that is I'm the wrong chairman for your football club, I'm the wrong chairman for my football club. 

Because the resources that are needed now to be a successful League One or League Two football club is beyond anything I could ever give to you. My plan was to bring in an investment company who could take this football club in the direction that I wanted to go. 

The funds that I had of my own, I could not achieve it. I said that five years ago. Ben and I met, and he's right to record the fact that everything I asked Trivela to do, they have done and more. In the sense that, whatever I asked them to do, they did so ahead of time. 

The stadium was bought back ahead of time by two years, the Saddlers Club which was a disgrace, was gone and turned into the Locker ahead of time. And the player budget is significantly more than anything I could ever have given you as your chairman.

It would've been impossible for me to do. It's a big change for the football club but it's got a much better of chance of being successful the way it is now, than it would've ever been with me sitting here. I'm extremely pleased with the way that Ben has come in with the Trivela Group and it will only take us to where we want to be. 

I couldn't have done it and I don't believe there's any individual in the town of Walsall that possibly could. The League One we left five years ago is a hell of a lot different to the one today. 

BS: On the Peterborough comparison, we're doing it our own way, but just for a bit of flavour. We said already that we don't think the top budgets equal the top outcomes. As we've seen, if we were to have a top budget, you might to try to set-up and affect games differently to what we do. 

When Trivela came in, Mat Sadler and Matt Jordan spent a lot of time looking at what other clubs who've done well, how do you get more out of a budget than the sum of its parts? What does the style of play look like? What are the key characteristics of League Two teams who haven't played like Barcelona? 

It's not like Notts County where they make 200 passes sideways to play one forward at times. If they had a little bit more drive and momentum through the middle, they could be a very good team. There is a rationale behind it. 

We want athletic players, who have the capacity to outrun the opposition. And that's where the coaching comes in and that's where we try to put the best coaches in place. There is a strategy and the recruitment then feeds into that. 

There's no magic formula. All we're doing as a group is doing what we believe in our experiences, our skills and our knowledge, which aren't perfect. Between us, what do we think the best way of achieving our goals is. We want to be a place where players come and do well. It benefits them, it benefits us, they move on and we reinvest in the football and the club. Then the next one comes through and that's the cycle. 

More on Nathan Lowe...

LP: I remember the meeting with Mat and Matt Jordan. They really targeted him and Mat was adamant that the player he wanted was Nathan Lowe. Nathan could've went to lots of clubs but he chose to come to Walsall. 

And the fact that we developed his career and made him a property in League One, League Two and the Championship, makes us attractive for other people to come here. You look at the lad we brought in from Bournemouth. He saw what we were able to do for Nathan Lowe and views that as something we can do for him, to take him to the next level. Conversely, when you've got Nathan Lowe, nobody else wants to join because you're never going to get a kick. 

It was interesting that we were trying to recruit attackers when Nathan Lowe was here and it was almost impossible. That hinders, but the fact that he was here at all has now helped us because we can bring in players with the hope that they can do for their careers what we did for Nathan Lowe. I think he's the best young striker I've seen for donkey years. We were lucky to get him, but at the same time we worked very hard to get him. 

On non-league signings

LP: Someone also asked about bringing National League players in. We had to work really hard to get them in. The lad from Chester [Harrison Burke] and the lad from Eastbourne [Courtney Clarke]. So many clubs wanted him because they're identified as future prospects. 

We had to work extremely hard to get those individuals in. You have to compete to get their signatures because a lot of clubs went in for them, including League One clubs. We take great pride in that and we've helped develop some very good players. 

On an optimistic note, you can expect to see two or three more signatures in the coming week or two before the beginning of the season.We're not finished yet, we've made very good progress, but we want to bring some more in. 

Final words from Leigh Pomlett 

LP: I personally am sorry that we didn't get the promotion that we should've. I didn't sleep for a week after that Wembley performance, I was really sad and disappointed. 

Not only about the performance at Wembley as such, but the fact that we were there at all was a huge problem to me. But nevertheless, as Ben Boycott said, this is a pretty cruel game. We have to now as a club move on. 

We can't keep talking about the fact that the second half of the season was a problem. Because it clearly was. My message to all of you is try to do that. We can't keep going back to the points that we lost, or the fact that we were one-minute from promotion. 

All of that stuff is true and we can no longer affect it. All we're asking you to do is come with us, and try your very best as I'm trying to do. Forget it, move on and let's crack on with this football club because there are a lot of young players who will run out against Swindon who have no history with us. We don't want to make them feel that they're being [affected] by that history which was so unfortunate last season. 

So all I'm saying is, OK, you've had your say, we know you're angry. But we as a management team have got to say let's learn our lessons and move on, and we're asking you do the same. There's an awful lot right about this football club. 

And I know that because I know the other clubs very well, I know the chairmen very well. I've mentioned my work that I'm doing outside the club in football more generally and we're one of the most highly regarded football clubs in the whole of the EFL. We really have to build on that and I'm asking you guys to build on that, and find it in your hearts to support the club and teams going forwar