Saddlers Social: Walsall supporters assess Bristol Rovers loss

James Kenealey

It’s a sorry reflection of the way things are with this football club in recent years that it feels like that Bristol Rovers game could have taken place at any point within the last three seasons with any combination of the players or management staff we’ve had in that time and it would have followed the same basic trajectory.

A team who haven’t tasted victory on the road in months and are desperately in need of a win to keep their odious manager employed for another week arrive backed by a good following and go from behind, desperate long balls and borderline surrender to a last-minute winner.

Cue limbs, resigned groans and another long drive home. Something is fundamentally wrong when an entire staff can change but the outcome doesn’t.

The game turned on the Emmanuel Osadebe injury. From reasonably comfortable to defending that would make a Monday night 5-a-side rabble embarrassed – all in mere minutes.

Apart from the broad mentality of the place and our general game management, I think the thing that worries me most about this squad is fitness.

Ignore the injury woes for a second, and let's consider how we seem to flag alarmingly after about an hour. It makes it even more incredulous that our 10 men ever managed to come away from Valley Parade with a point a few weeks ago. Or that we got such a comfortable win against Mansfield.

It’s concerning, because we’re shedding precious points with our tired antics in the last 20 minutes. Precious, precious points.

Maybe what we need is a good old-fashioned pre-season Cassius Camp, right?

Oldham away on October 19 is a game I’ve marked as being particularly important. Not just because it’ll be my first away game since Salford in January 2020, but because it’ll be an interesting exercise in benchmarking us against a club in literal, tennis-balls-on-the-pitch turmoil.

Nick Etheridge

During the summer and the excitement around some of our recruitment, one signing that slipped under the radar was Rollin Menayese. After Saturday it’s clear that he is a key component and should be in the starting eleven when fit and available.

Individually, I like both Ash Taylor and Manny Monthe but they are far too similar to be played as a pair.

Someone else who has established himself as a key player in Matt Taylor’s side is Liam Kinsella. Whenever he’s been missing we’ve been overrun in midfield and lacking someone who enjoys doing the dirty work.

Hopefully on Saturday Joss Labadie will be in contention and able to stay on the pitch. He’s had mixed reviews since the season began but with Kinsella missing we were desperate for a bit of bite in the middle of the park.

Hopefully the team can get out of this mini rut and begin climbing the table again.

Roberto Petrucco

Valuable points are being dropped through sloppy defending at the moment. There has been no defensive formula that has worked so far.

Carl Rushworth has had to keep Walsall in games too many times, and he can be thanked for the points that Walsall have picked up.

The Saddlers are scoring goals at the moment. It is the ones conceded that are becoming the real issue.

Walsall have only failed to score on two occasions this season, against Tranmere and Hartlepool. It is clear where Taylor must focus his attention in a bid to pick up points, and that is in defence, especially set-pieces.

But the question is, what defensive line-up will actually work?