Chris Hutchings had to leave Walsall

Walsall blogger Mark Jones reflects the mood of Saddlers fans everywhere as the club move on to a new era without manager Chris Hutchings.

Just as we had all given up hope of some decisive action from Walsall Football Club, they go and surprise everyone by sacking manager Chris Hutchings, assistant Martin O'Connor and Hutch's mate, chief scout David Hamilton.

I could be critical for the sake of it and say it was long overdue but in reality I'm just relieved. Credit must go to chief executive Stefan Gamble for responding to the numerous e-mails that were fired off to him by angry and anxious fans on Monday night.

To give some context to how things came to a head over the weekend, here are some of the things I originally wrote in the wake of the Notts County and Peterborough debacles.

Having not been to football for weeks there were loads of things that I'd forgotten, or at least put to the back of my mind, about the beautiful game, mainly just how poor the current Walsall side can be.

It took until around 3:09pm on New Year's Day for the Saddlers to jog my memory.

For those that weren't there for the Notts County game at the Banks's Stadium, this is how it went: -

The first goal was a one-on-one chance as a direct result of Steve Jones losing a 50-50ish ball in the middle of the park which was just plain sloppy. Our defence stood around waving their hands in the air like nursery kids asking to go to the toilet as Craig Westcarr ran clear. His shot appeared to go through a hole in goalkeeper Jonny Brain's chest.

The second goal was truly shocking, a disgrace of a goal to concede. Lee Miller scored with the easiest of free headers. The County striker wouldn't have had as much time unchallenged to pick his spot if he was practising heading in a training session.

The third goal was a near-post header from a corner that went through our reserve goalkeeper's hands. Just as the corner was being taken, my 12-year-old son pointed out that we had no-one on the near post. If a 12-year-old can see the basics not being done properly, why can't those whose job it actually is see it too?

County had plenty of other chances, often cutting through us with consummate ease. They had been just six points ahead of us at the start of play, so the game should actually have been a six-pointer.

In reality, they were in a different league to us – next season they probably will be. To call us amateurish would be an insult to amateur football.

Against Peterborough we were better – although we couldn't have been much worse.

Taking the lead gave everyone a faint hope of a repeat of the unlikely win at Charlton and we had chances, but deep down you knew it wasn't going to happen.

The second-half deterioration, complete with more comedy set-piece defending, was depressingly predictable.

We all know about the financial restrictions and limitations that any Walsall manager has to contend with, but what I don't understand is how we can be so underprepared, badly organised and lacking in fight.

Those of us still turning up every week are for the most part questioning our sanity right now. Someone has to take responsibility for this dross.

Thankfully, as mentioned above, somebody did and thankfully acted on it.

For me, it became clear months ago that Hutchings wasn't capable of turning things round.

To be fair to him, when he arrived two years ago this month it was an improvement on Jimmy Mullen, but that wasn't exactly saying much. Last season we did OK finishing 10th and I had hoped we could build on that, but last summer saw more dismantling than anything.

The squad has never seemed balanced, there are no obvious leaders, loan signings have been patchy and performances starting off as poor then becoming increasingly inept. The mistakes of the last two games were typical of pretty much the whole season.

As things continued to decline, Hutch's reactions became ever more comical and, in some cases, downright bizarre. It was becoming embarrassing and, while the personal abuse he received was distasteful and not to be condoned, he just had to go.

It was sad to see his assistant Martin O'Connor depart. We will never know if he was actually part of the problem or whether things would have been different for him under a different boss.

But it was typical of the man that pretty much the last act in the job was to get sent to the stands for disputing a blatantly offside goal. Even though the game was clearly up, it still mattered to him.

You could never question Mart's passion for the club, to me he still is and always will be a Walsall legend. I hope he bounces back and I wish him all the best for the future.

As for Hamilton, it was hard to see what contribution he actually made, he certainly never impressed at the Meet the Manager evenings.

When asked about his best signing, he talked about bringing Jimmy Bullard to moneybags Wigan, because that must have been a real hard one to spot, mustn't it?

Maybe some of the current crop of players he recommended will do better under a different regime.

A clue to the where things might have gone wrong came in the players' farewell comments on Twitter, many of them praising how nice the management team were.

I'm not sure that 'nice' is necessarily an adjective I particularly want to see in a manager – Sir Alex doesn't win any popularity contests, Ray Graydon, Chris Nicholl and Richard Money were all hard men and even Alan Buckley could rant with the best of them.

The next step of course is to get the right man for the job and anyone who can emulate the achievements of those I've just mentioned will do.

The club has haemorrhaged support over the past three years since the Scott Dann transfer and Richard Money's departure as manager, while many fans have been put off by the continual poor performances being served up this season.

In my opinion, five of the last six appointments have turned out to be failures, so we really can't afford another one.

The right noises are coming from the club about the season not being over and relegation not being a certainty.

On Monday evening I'd have laughed at them, now there is a slight glimmer.

A happy New Year at last for us Saddlers.