Saddlers not following the script
There will be no Great Escape for the Saddlers this season; it simply doesn't feel the same as it did last year when we had come back from a seemingly hopeless situation and Project Ginger Mourinho had brought everyone closer together, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.
There will be no Great Escape for the Saddlers this season; it simply doesn't feel the same as it did last year when we had come back from a seemingly hopeless situation and Project Ginger Mourinho had brought everyone closer together, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.
We believed and there was a genuine sense of optimism that things would get better. To be honest if results had gone against us in 2011, the vast majority of fans would still have recognised it as a heroic effort. Twelve months on and even if we do survive it will seem less of an escape from the nazis and more a strongly-worded letter of complaint about what day the bins are collected.
Technically we are in a better position this time round and the right combination of results could see us safe come five o'clock on Saturday but three successive defeats, with performances getting progressively worse, have left no margin for error. The amount of points thrown away from winning positions has now reached stupidly ridiculous proportions.
More worryingly in the past few weeks we have conceded nine goals in games against the bottom three sides. The capitulation in the last 25 minutes at Rochdale before Andy Butler got us out of jail was made to look like a positively textbook professional display by the shambles that unravelled at Exeter from the 65th minute on.
Once again there were ridiculous refereeing decisions to contend with. The Belgian's shot might just have crossed the line and Manny's sending-off was a joke (and if cravat-wearing Grecian boss Paul Tisdale thinks that antics of ex-wulferhampton player Nardiello in throwing himself to the floor and then gesturing for a card are 'playing the right way' then his team deserve to go down).
But you'd have been disappointed if the phantom goal had been given against us and going down to ten doesn't necessarily have to mean defeat (or schoolboy defending). When points are there for the taking and games have to be won, then the players and management have to deliver.
Walsall FC could well be relegated to League Two next week. We can conduct the post-mortem about incompetent officials and a lack of ambition at the top in two weeks.
Now is not the time for excuses.
