Saddlers Social: Walsall fans have their say

Roberto Petrucco

What a strange weekend. The victory has been overshadowed by the growing rumours of Brian Dutton's imminent departure.

This week, I want to look at why Dutton should stay. Firstly, results have improved. Yes the results against Colchester and Salford were poor, but even with those, Walsall are top six in recent form, and although you can use stats to prove anything, the points gained are there for all to see.

Dutton inherited a side low on confidence, and has started to improve them. He needed time to work with the squad, and get them out of the rut. I believe the change of formation and tactics has been Dutton trying to get the best out of his players.

Youth has been a big part of Dutton's management, and this is something that could have benefitted with Fullarton's influence. However, by the looks of it, we will never know what could have been.

Nick Etheridge

I’m not really sure what to say about this team. The two performances last week felt as if the players had just downed tools and were going through the motions. Then they turn in a decent performance that makes you wonder if these players actually do care. I’m sure that one or two of them already have deals lined up elsewhere, but some of the players will need to be putting in performances to save their careers. Whether that’s with Walsall or elsewhere remains to be seen.

It’s interesting that Wes McDonald made his first start in weeks and makes you wonder if Jamie Fullarton is already having an influence on things. Given the post match comments of Brian Dutton I'd say that it’s definitely the case.

It’s very brave of him to publicly come out and question Leigh Pomlett. If his days weren’t already numbered I’d say they probably are now. It’ll be very interesting to see how the last few games pan out.

Chris Saunders

We made fairly easy work of a very poor Scunthorpe side but that result doesn’t really tell us much. We can take away that 4-2-3-1 is by far the best formation for this squad. A goal for Josh Gordon is a very welcome sight and I think he deserves better for the effort levels he has put in.

Whilst this result doesn’t tell us anything about our squad or plans for next season really due to the amount of potential departures, the bizarre interview with Dutton after the game certainly shakes things up over the coming days. Certainly it doesn’t show a calm measured approach and instead gave some hints of desperation.

With all this going on the season is nearly over, however one thing that certainly is needed is a word Dutton used, clarity. We need to know where we stand as a club so we can build for next season as it really won’t be that far away and there could be a lot of rebuilding to do!

Stuart Cox

A much better performance on Saturday which has somewhat been overshadowed by the very bizarre post-match comments from the manager.

I think that the result was a combination of us playing well and coming up against an extremely poor and disjointed Scunthorpe side who, if there were a few more games left, could well have ended up in the bottom two.

Personally, I can’t wait until the whistle blows at the end of this awful season and I will, rightly or wrongly, have the pre-season optimism that I have every year. From listening to the comments from Brian Dutton after the game, it seems like he won’t be here next season.

I have been critical of him over the last couple of months, but some of what he said was true. It’s his first managerial post and he was left with a team who were on their knees and sinking at a fast rate without three of their best players. You always felt that you could see what he was trying to do, but the results and performances were often difficult to look past.

Some of his comments though were strange at best and certainly did nothing to strengthen his relationship with the chairman. Would anyone else have done a better job? Possibly, although we will never know. There were always shoots of progress there, both in terms of style of football (at times) and the emergence of some of the youngsters, Perry in particular, but for every shoot, there was a Barrow-esque performance that made you forget.

If it is the case that Dutton leaves, let’s hope the chairman gets the next appointment right and let’s hope that the Director of Football can oversee a good summer of recruitment.