Saddlers Social: Walsall fans have their say

Ian Newbold

Like most football fans just before a new season starts I’m falling head first into the optimism trap.

There’s plenty of reasons why we can be optimistic. Football actually coming back is one. The Saddlers having a strong settled squad that will hopefully start this season where they finished the curtailed one, another.

Holden signing permanently, makes at least three good solid reasons. However there must be some caution, there could be a Flash sale (Geddit?), and our forward line no longer has a specialised coach.

Still, let’s ignore those things.We really just need to applaud the club for getting football back on, and communicating brilliantly with us throughout the Covid crisis.

Let’s simply look forward to whatever this new season brings.

Stuart Cox

It’s been a long time! Saturday felt like a very strange version of the first day of the season. Excited yes, but it just didn’t have that same buzz and build up.

I can’t wait to be watching football properly again soon. The match? A bit of a damp squib really. Not really much attacking threat from either team with both defences doing well and limiting the opposition for most of the game. Overall, I was pleased with how we dealt with a team much higher in the pyramid than ourselves although I always felt that Wednesday were going to nick it in the second half.

Thoughts for the season? Hopeful…I think! We will probably have one of the most settled squads in the divisions with most our business being done last summer. This was blamed for our poor start last year and hopefully won’t be an issue again. I feel we have the quality to aim for a top 7 finish and that has to be our aim. Who knows – it’s never easy watching the Walsall rollercoaster!

Rob Harvey

Well what a pleasure it was to have live football back at the Banks’s, even though we couldn’t be there.

I’ll start with the ‘pre season’ that we’ve had – I am happy with the signings we have made so far as they will create competition for places across the team and they are all very good footballers to have in a League Two football club it would seem. I am especially pleased to see Rory Holden return on a permanent deal as I think he will turn out to be much better than League Two.

Other things I’ve been impressed with over the near half a year we’ve not had anything to watch include the communication from the club and the way we appear to have handled ourselves. I have every faith in the board and management team to take us forward and make Walsall great again.

Moving onto the Sheffield Wednesday game I must say I was delighted to see that bar a couple of lapses of concentration we more than held our own against what are an established Championship football club. The defence were most impressive and I was personally impressed with Cameron Norman’s performance as he seemed to have one of his best games in a Walsall shirt. Talking of the defence, it’s nice to see that our back line is full of ‘units’ that can handle themselves and get physical when required.

The game itself was a little boring, and I don’t think you can base much off it other than it looks like we’ve got a good defensive game and the worry for the season as it is right now might be where would all of the goals required come from to fire us to promotion. That said, I’m sure DC and the coaching team will be looking at getting that sorted. On that note, can we have some practice on penalties and also how to save them? I can only remember seeing us win two shoot-outs in over twenty years of following them.

Moving forward I expect some further signings to bolster the squad and I’m looking forward to seeing us back in regular action. Fingers crossed we can get back in the stadium from October.....it’s been too long.

Looking forward to seeing us in action on Tuesday now. UTS!

Robert Dearn

It was a great to see the boys back in competitive action this week, and despite the penalty loss, I think we all felt they gave a good account of themselves, and look fit and ready for league action.

I could talk for ages about the state of the game at the moment, but instead I want to applaud the transfer recruitment and all involved. It could have easily been a transfer market filled with loans. However, four permanent deals, and one loan is a great position to be in.

All the transfers look good, and the right type of players to bring in. They are experienced at this level, and also are hungry to play. Osadebe, White and Rose all have had mixed spells, through injury, failed transfers, or being left behind Robbo, and all will want to show what they can do. So well done to all involved, especially to Pomlett, who has backed DC in this window.

Nick Etheridge

How good was that? Not the entertainment on show, definitely not the coverage on Sky Sports, but the fact that football is back! I’m sure that many of us have prayed at some point during lock down of seeing the boys in red (and green) churn out a sleep inducing 0-0 draw, and boy did we get that!

In all honesty, it wasn’t the football that mattered on Saturday. It was more about getting to see our team play in a competitive game again. People will, and have already moaned about missed penalties, but it all really pales into insignificance. The time to really critique performances, the management and individual players will come in the league games, but Saturday was really a free hit against a decent team where the most important thing was really seeing the team again.

Rather than focus on the playing side of things, it’s clear that the Club have really moved forward their relationship with the fans. From the details given out by the Chairman, to the snippets with players on social media, it’s all helped to create a real togetherness which is needed if we are to get out of this league at the right end.

The way that the club was previously run has definitely held us in good stead but this regime has taken it to another level and where it has fallen down previously, it’s only fair that we praise in equal measure. I’m sure that there will be plenty of bumps in the road going forward, but that’s certainly better than not moving at all!

Dan Price

How good does that feel to have the saddlers back in a competitive fixture. A cup game against a decent championship side was always going to be challenging and even following the defeat I was pretty impressed with our performance.

I thought our full backs had great games against their skillful wide men and although our front four rarely tested the Sheffield Wednesday 'keeper there was some decent creativity which in our own league will cause plenty of problems.

Roll on the League Two season, I’m got a good feeling about the season ahead.

Chris Saunders

Football without fans is a strange thing to watch, but my word is it better than no football at all!

It’s nice to see our recruitment done fairly early, however they key for me is the settled nature of the squad from last season. Keeping the majority and just adding where needed or to strengthen should see us in fine shape.

As much as getting knocked out of the cup is a shame, it’s the league we need to focus on and the performance against a championship team was very impressive, solid and steady. If we can build on that going forward I think this season could be a successful one for the club.

James Kenealey

It’s good to be back!

Well, sort of back anyway. Watching us play our first competitive match from the comfort of my couch was underwhelming but still refreshing after so long.

Personally, I thought we played reasonably well against our two-divisions higher visitors. In a pretty dull game devoid of drama (which further exposed the lack of a crowd and pushed it into pre-season friendly territory) I thought there were some encouraging signs from a team that haven’t played a competitive game in six months. A lack of crowd noise gave the commentators a tough time to fill even more empty space than usual, and my personal Walsall Sky Commentary Bingo (‘near the M6/not the biggest budget/well run/surrounded bigger clubs’) saw a full house inside nine minutes. Tough gig. I do wonder if the lack of crowd was part of the reason for a lack of excitement. Don't underestimate the power of an atmosphere.

But we looked solid, passed the ball around well and generally nullified the threat from an albeit uninspiring Sheffield Wednesday side. All that made the penalty failure that little bit more frustrating for me though.

With a date for the return of crowds still unclear, a half decent cup run would have bought some much needed cash to help offset the impact behind closed doors will have on the club’s finances. We’d done the hard bit, so it’s just frustrating we couldn’t see off a few penalties.

I’m excited to see what the three late newcomers will bring to a Walsall squad enjoying some rare cross-season stability, and regardless of where I’ll be watching this Saturday it’s good that it’s back. Now we just need to work on getting back into the stadium, because let’s be honest, we all miss it.

Jon Taylor

How we feeling Saddlers fans? It feels like a lifetime ago since walking out of the Banks's on March 7 after a fantastic performance against Exeter. Fast forward six months with a summer of decent recruitment and up and down pre-season we kicked off our 2020/21 campaign against Sheffield Wednesday.

Saturday showed us how I think DC wants to set us up and we saw glimpses last season where he wants us to be solid at the back and then take out chances when they came and we more than held our own against a decent Championship outfit.

My concern, as remained last year, is that we may struggle to create opportunities which we saw in pre-season as well and need a little bit more creativity. If Danny Guthrie can stay fit he can give us that with his passing but we do lack that when he’s not playing, but hopefully with pretty much the same squad as last year we carry on our good form from last season.

I can’t wait to be back at the Banks's!