New Walsall players in need of patience
Walsall manager Darrell Clarke has called for patience as he integrates his new signings into the group.
Of the five loanees that joined in January, four of them were in the squad for Tuesday’s draw with Manfield – as only Jayden Reid missed out.
Two of them combined for the goal as Tyreik Wright set up Max Melbourne on his debut and Clarke insists he needs time to ‘bed’ them all in.
When asked about Wright, Clarke said: “The 19-year-old kid has done great – picked up a groin injury there at the end. We’ve got him in, Derick (Osei Yaw) in, we’ve got Jayden Reid, Max scored on his debut and we’ve got (Frank) Vincent. They’re all development players.
“They will take time to bed into the group. 20 games to go, plenty of points to go for but we’ll keep chipping away, working on the players and working hard on the training ground to try and get those relationships that we’ve built.
“Sometimes with players they can hit the ground running or sometimes take time to develop and a prime example is Eli (Adebayo). For six months anybody would have been happy to drive him anywhere but a bit of work and a bit of development, he’s turned into a better player. He’s (Melbourne) settled in really good, it’s a good group to settle into. Max will tell you that, the spirit is fantastic and they enjoy the intensity of the training that we do.
“It’s promising when you hear loan players say that they haven’t trained like this in a while, it’s so intense so hopefully they pick up on those things early but I was really pleased for Max to score on his debut.”
