What a difference a year makes

Walsall blogger Mark Jones believe the Saddlers team that kicked off a year prior to Saturday's season opener tells you all you need to know about boss Dean Smith.

First games of the season don't necessarily provide fans with an accurate indication of how the rest of the campaign will pan out.

But you only have to compare the solid win over Leyton Orient for Dean Smith's Walsall with the shambolic humbling that Chris Hutchings' Saddlers suffered against Milton Keynes a year earlier to see that things could be very different in 2011-12.

For a start, we kept a clean sheet, something which took 11 games to achieve last season - ironically against Orient - and a whopping six-and-a-half months to do at home in the league.

More importantly, we actually looked capable of keeping the opposition out. Goalkeeper Jimmy Walker pulled off a couple of neat, but routine by his standards, saves.

Yet I didn't think that Orient really caused any chaos in our box, which was down to the way the whole team was set up.

Compare that with the kind of defending that characterised in not just the first game but the first half of 2010-11 and it's fair to say that the work on the training ground has been far more productive in the summer just gone.

A mate asked if I knew where Jonny Brain was now and, to be honest, I don't actually know but as long as it's not in WS1 I don't really care.

To be fair, when Brain was playing in goal for us the rest of the team were never entirely sure where he was either.

Not that I just want to single out one individual - Aaron Lescott, Paul Marshall and Ryan McGivern were all examples of the wrong players in the wrong place at the wrong time brought in by the wrong manager.

Looking at the spine of the team on Saturday – led by a commanding centre-half, with a midfield player capable of dominating and influencing the game, an experienced striker with an eye for goal who holds the ball up well, all backed up with a fantastic goalkeeper – gives further evidence that we now have a manager who knows what's required at our level.

The influence that Andy Butler, Adam Chambers, Jon Macken and Walker are having on those around them cannot be understated either.

Darryl Westlake, Oliver Lancashire, Richard Taundry and Will Grigg all put in the kind of performances on Saturday that would have probably been beyond them in the first part of last season.

With the other new boys beginning to settle in, I'm more confident about the strength of the squad than I was at any point last season.

The bookies don't get too much wrong but they can be wide of the mark when it comes to the mighty Saddlers, although not as woefully out-for-a-throw wide as the 'pundits.'

I think we'll be OK this season and maybe we'll even surprise a few people. There, I have said it.