Saddlers Social: Walsall fans have their say

Nathan Briant

It’s a shame the chairman of the club doesn’t feel it’s important to speak to fans and leaves that to club employees.

But that aside, the fans’ meeting tonight is to be welcomed. The issue that needs resolving is: 'what does Walsall FC want to do?'

The most frustrating thing for me is that weeks go by and I see Walsall play yet another average team. Regardless of the result, a lot of the time I leave thinking, we could be better than those.

Pumping money into a club isn’t always the solution – look at Saturday’s opponents, Oxford. For all the money they’ve spent, they’re just eight points ahead of us.

But they’re ambitious and are looking up. Whereas the impression Walsall has given for some time is that it’s quite happy to sit in mid-table and rake in the money from another function in the Bonser Suite.

While I’m sure that’s not the club’s official stance, it must do more to outline ambitions – or if they’re modest and quite happy to sit in 18th while clubs pass us by, revise them.

Nick Etheridge

Given everything going on this week with planned protests, fans focus meetings and the absence of our "number one fan Jeff Bonser", we shouldn't deter from the fact that on the pitch we need to get back to winning ways.

With the unsurprising (for different reasons) departure of both Dan Agyei and Zeli Ismail, it has left us with a gaping hole in the squad in terms of creativity and firepower.

The signing of George Dobson is a welcome addition that gives us extra depth to the squad.

But the focus really should be on forward options, given that Tyler Roberts will probably also be in his way this month.

With a tricky run of fixtures coming up, it's vital that we start picking up wins again, otherwise, we may be in for a very bleak spring.

Kevin Paddock

It seems Saddlers fans are finally trying to displace owner Jeff Bonser.

His relations with supporters are now at all time low and it's hard to see where our owner can go from here.

Continuous silence from the board has led to a mini revolt with fans intending to protest on Saturday, a move I back entirely.

The board have gone into their shells - well they did until a fans forum was called. Nothing against Dan Mole, Stefan Gamble or even Jon Whitney but the non attendance of Bonser means the meeting is pointless.

With the club three points above the drop zone, I would be more happy if Jon announced his resignation.

The club is sinking and I honestly can't see how we will turn this around. A win against Oxford will help but long term Jeff needs to hurry up and sell.

Richard Kendrick

What a situation we find ourselves in with this divide between club and fans.

All the good work put in over the last few years has returned to the negative, cold ways of the past.

The club were communicating well and seemed to have a philosophy everyone could buy into; all this has now gone.

One man has the power to change this and state what they want from their club, the club they support.

They need to lead by example and as a true fan, they should want what we all realistically want.

Walsall fans are no mugs, but we feel like we are treated that way.

We may be small in number, we don’t expect success, but we do expect to have a club to be proud of. One with an identity, that tries to play good, attacking football regardless of the result.

One that will not be easily beaten by lower teams and one that will go toe to toe with teams better than us, like the fearless Walsall of old.

Big decisions need making.