Sour grapes for Walsall to swallow

Walsall blogger Mark Jones' dismay at the club being back in the League One drop zone today has been heightened by the way Brighton beat the Saddlers.

As it turned out, the other results went for us and, with four games to go, we remained out of the bottom four until Notts County's untimely win over Tranmere last night.

It wasn't difficult to see on Saturday why Brighton have become champions. They play good football, keep the ball well, their movement is good, they always have options in possession and every one of their players appears to be comfortable on the ball.

But I still spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday sulking. Why? Partly because two of the goals conceded were down to bad defending from set pieces - and early in each half as well.

Partly down to some poor decision making at our own set pieces – Brighton's goalkeeper Casper Ankergren looked particularly vulnerable in the first 10 minutes, so why we didn't seem to test him from a corner or free kick once after Andy Butler's equaliser is anybody's guess.

But mostly my mood was down to inept refereeing and the antics of certain Brighton players.

If you are the person in black and you apply the letter of the law, then Ledesma did go for a loose ball with two feet and you show the red card to the distraught young attacker.

You then send off Elliott Bennett for his totally unnecessary manhandling of Emanuel afterwards, you book all six of the Brighton players - who couldn't all have seen the incident - that surrounded the ref in order to gain the advantage of having an opponent sent off, especially the snidy one who pointed to the dressing room like he was in charge.

The Seagulls by this time would have played most of the game with 10 men, as by applying the letter of the law you'd have done the entire game a favour and sent off Ashley 'Ballerina' Barnes for persistent diving.

Or alternatively you could referee with some common sense, see that there was absolutely no malice in Ledesma's challenge, award a free kick and a yellow card if you must.

As an aside, I do wonder how many of those Brighton players cavorting on our pitch will actually be playing for them this time next year and how many will be thrown on the scrapheap by their nouveau riche Championship employees?

I can see the likes of Barnes throwing himself to the Banks's Stadium turf as a loanee at somewhere like Southend, Wycombe or Colchester - preferably the latter - sooner than he thinks.

The argument that bad decisions even themselves out over the course of the season doesn't really provide much comfort when you're about to lose your most creative player for three quarters of the remainder of the season, with a successful appeal about as likely as us getting a penalty this season.

The last one was Darren Byfield's in September 2009 in case you were wondering, although it feels like it could have been Alan Buckley or Tony Richards.

So, as we hit the home straight, it's all getting a bit tense to say the least. We're now back in the relegation zone and we have got to pick up more points than the teams around us during the run in or we're doomed.

My nerves are getting frayed, someone get me a doctor, preferably one who understands irony and can recognise the odd pun now and again.

Come on you Saddlers!