Walsall season review: Where did all the hope go for the Saddlers?

Here we take a look back at the rights and wrongs of a disappointing season.

Season’s successes?

If it can be seen as a success, Walsall stabilised their league position, again finishing 16th in League Two, the same as the previous season and three places above the 2020-21 season.

They lost 15 games out of the 46, compared to 20 last season and only a long run of draws after Christmas, and a chronic lack of goals stopped them from finishing further up the table.

That dearth of goals came after Christmas when Danny Johnson returned to parent club Mansfield Town and they failed to replicate the 15 in the league he had scored.

An FA Cup run to the fourth round, for the first time in seven years, was a definite success and gave the supporters something to get excited about, with an epic win at Stockport County in the third round a particular highlight. That brought them a fourth-round tie with Leicester City and a sell-out crowd at the Bescot Stadium, with the associated build-up, TV and radio coverage which can only have improved the profile of the club.

Failures

It was a roller-coaster of a season for Walsall, with a poor start followed by a run of 10 games without defeat before and around Christmas and only one loss in 12. This lifted hopes of a play-off push. But too many draws, including a 3-3 stalemate at lowly Hartlepool when Walsall were 3-1 up in injury time proved fatal to that.

To replace Johnson, they then brought in a ‘tried and trusted’ League Two level strike partnership in Jamille Matt and Matt Stevens which ultimately didn’t come off. It took the duo some time to get fit and it ended up a stop-start partnership that never really got off the ground.

When one of them was playing, very often the other wasn’t and they never really got a chance to gel properly. In the end they got three goals between them.

The managers

Michael Flynn was lauded as a very good manager at League Two level, having had success at Newport County with two play-off finals and three runs in the FA Cup – including to the fifth round in 2019 where they lost to Manchester City.

This was his first full season at Bescot having stabilised Walsall when he arrived in February last year and there were high hopes of them pushing on from the 16th-place finish of last season and around Christmas it looked good.

But he showed visible signs of frustration as the Danny Johnson saga came to a head saying they had been “priced out” of the market by a fee “nobody would pay” and, even though no manager should rely on one player, the loss of a striker who had already scored 15 goals was dramatic. A run of one win in 18 league game cost Flynn his job, the last game being a dire 3-0 defeat at relegation-threatened Harrogate Town.

The Welshman seemed at a loss as to what to do next and the players seemed less than committed in the last few games as discipline slipped.

Flynn was sacked the next day and subsequently took the manager’s job at Swindon. As good a manager as Flynn was when his team were winning, high on work-rate and discipline, he seemed to let that slip, or some of his players did towards the end of his reign. Certainly the performances towards the end were desperate and the football was too route one for some fans as well.

In Mat Sadler, Walsall have a young manager who knows the club inside out having played more than 100 games for the club and already being a coach at the Bescot. He took charge for the last three games of the season so has experience in charger and may be able to carry out Benjamin Boycott’s blueprint for working with Matt Jordan to identify players who will fit into the ‘Walsall way’.

Off the field

There was plenty to shout about for Walsall fans off the field, with the takeover in June last year by the American sports investment group Trivela making Benjamin Boycott co-chairman along with the remaining Leigh Pomlett.

They promised investment in the club on and off the field and the jewel in the crown for Saddlers fans, the freehold of the stadium.

That was duly delivered early at the end of December to much jubilation from supporters with the promise of renovating the Saddlers Club and other venues at the stadium. In February, the news wasn’t so good when it was announced Walsall recorded a loss of £742,000 to the end of May ‘22, which was blamed on the effects of the pandemic.

Season ticket prices for 2023-24 were announced and caused controversy, with Walsall being one of the most expensive League Two clubs to watch football at next term, despite their lowly finish in the league. In Trivela, Walsall seem to have owners who will back the club, but not with pots of money, and they will be looking to stabilise finances on and off the field.

What next?

Walsall need to improve in terms of league position in what will be their fifth consecutive season in the bottom division. The best they have achieved in that time is 12th.

Mat Sadler has kept the core of a decent side he has retained from last season but will need to add some vital elements to it – not least goals – if the Saddlers are to kick on which is what the fans will expect.

Off the field, improvements to facilities at the Bescot Stadium need to continue to be made for both the match day experience and banqueting venues which need to be accessible and available to all the fan base if the club is to bring in much needed non-football revenue.