Ben Boycott pledges to revive Walsall after poor season

In the first of two open letters penned to everyone concerned with the club, he pinpointed seven areas his Trivela group would be working on to achieve their goal.

They are: clear playing identity; clear culture; advanced player recruitment; player development and academy integration; continuity; defined systems and processes and football organisation structure.

Boycott took over in June last year, purchasing 51 per cent of the shares and keeping previous majority share-holder Leigh Pomlett on as co-chairman.

The first half of the season pointed to a play off push under manager Michael Flynn, who also led the team to a fourth round FA Cup tie with Leicester City. But he was sacked with three games to go until the end of the season after only two wins in the calendar year,

In the letter Boycott pointed to a poor 2023, saying the club had gone through a ‘disappointing down turn’ in which it had been forced to rely on positive results from October, November, and December just to be comfortable in its league status.

He said: “We did have poor luck with injuries, decisions and bounces in individual matches, and poor luck in the loan market, as two players were unavoidably lost in January, both of whom ended up being very key for us.

“We combated these losses with aggression and ambition in the January window, but the results after that simply did not come, as we all know.

“Blaming poor luck, however, is cheap and weak. The poor luck turned into a losing habit, which was allowed to snowball into the demise of a once-promising season.

“Obviously this has been immensely frustrating for everybody at the football club.

“While I remain hugely optimistic about our potential, I am as frustrated as anyone about the outcome of this past season on the pitch.”

Walsall are still looking for a new manager, assistant coach Mat Sadler having taken over as caretaker until the end of the season.

While paying tribute to Flynn, Boycott said the re-structuring of the club would affect the new boss’s working remit.

He said: “Michael is a good coach, and I deeply respect his contribution to Walsall FC,

“But under the new structure, our next manager will report directly to Matt Jordan, who in turn reports to myself.

“This structure will allow all parties in the combined organisation to leverage their capabilities in the areas for which they are most suited.”