A few home truths for the Saddlers

Walsall blogger Mark Jones has a few home truths for the Saddlers as the club go into the weekend rock-bottom of League One.

I'm sick and tired of excuses. I'm sick and tired of watching appalling football. I'm sick and tired of watching our players standing around looking blankly at each other as they fail to prevent yet another defeat.

Most of all I'm sick and tired of the way Walsall Football Club seems to be freefalling into oblivion.

On Saturday we went to the bottom of League One. On the evidence of what I've seen so far this season we could be there for quite some time.

Yeovil's winning goal bore alarming similarities to Hartlepool's the previous week – a free kick delivered to the back post, opposition player ambles in with minimal resistance and just has to get his header on target to score - simples.

It doesn't matter what level you're playing at, how small or inexperienced your squad is, what budget your manager has or hasn't got or what state your club's finances are in.

If your players can't defend properly, if they don't know what job they have to do, if they aren't organised or motivated properly, then someone has to take the blame.

And you know what? Let's face facts, it's the manager Chris Hutchings.

You assembled the squad, you chose not to replace the experienced Clayton Ince or Rhys Weston at the back.

You created extra pressure on yourself by allowing both Jamie Vincent and Mark Hughes to leave after they had signed contract acceptance forms.

Yes, it was the right thing to do but it should've been on our terms, when adequate replacements had been found.

You cleared the decks by releasing Mark Bradley and Dwayne Mattis then failed to bolster a weak midfield.

You chose not to bring in anyone with the necessary leadership skills out on the pitch.

You pick the players, you choose tactics and formation, you make the substitutions and you give the team talks.

Things haven't been going well for some time and the time has come for a change.

No disrespect to Devaney, Davis and Davies -who sound like a firm of accountants - but their arrivals look like a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks.

More of the same is not exactly what I was looking for.

I am genuinely concerned that we could be this season's equivalent of Stockport, stranded at the foot of the table with only a handful of points all season.

And I'm not confident that the slide could be halted upon relegation.

The Blue Square Premier might be a competitive league and exciting advert for non-league football but I don't necessarily want us to be part of it.

Of course the apparent inadequacies of Hutchings are but a part of the bigger picture. Chris wouldn't be in charge if his predecessor hadn't been equally as ineffective.

And, of course. Jimmy Mullen wouldn't have been in charge if Richard Money could have been convinced to stay in 2008.

Dicky Dosh was a good manager who got the club moving forward and starting to compete at a level we should be competing at. Money clearly had a vision for where realistically he could take the club.

Unfortunately, someone didn't share the same vision and it went unfulfilled.

Just like the vision for what Ray Graydon - an even better manager - could have achieved.

Just like the vision of where a team built around Martin O'Connor in the mid-90s could have taken us.

Just like the concept of us buying our own ground.

Could it be that while Hutch - along with the aforementioned Mart - is getting all the flak, it lets someone else off the hook? Just a thought.

This week we've been praised for our patience - you are too kind Stefan Gamble - and been branded as wallies.

Now I am no international but I know when I'm not been given any value for my hard-earned cash.

Defeat against Exeter could leave us stranded in bottom place with only two months of the season gone and would make an already bleak outlook look truly desperate.

Something had better change.