Yeovil (H) 21/3/06 League

[ws3]

One of the most shambolic, pathetic, lazy, passionless, spineless performances I have ever witnessed.

Anyone who was there will be wondering, as am I, where we will get any points at all with performances like that.

[Duke]

It's just another case of if we give away two daft goals we havn't got what it takes to chase down a 2 goal deficit, it's game over. Are the Bescot fans patient enough to see us slug out a 0-0 and then try and nick it in the last 20 minutes? Away from home the fans are, but at Bescot I seriously doubt it, and I think that is our best approach to accumulating points.

Agree entirely, and there in lies the problem. If we can't do that at home, then those 6 remaining home matches aren't actually much of an advantage.

DaveDean, apparently Timm did absolutely nothing when he came on and was marked out of the game superbly by Paul Terry according to Kearns.

Personally, I think I'd allow Fitzgerald and Timms (possibly even Leary) to all go back to their clubs if we can replace them with another two players.

yeah Stu my sons just got back a said Timm never got a touch
back to the drawing board

[Jorge14]

Good to see everyone not moaning and getting behind the lads, chanting "what a load of rubbish", something we never heard under Merson, took one defeat under KB.

Fantastic!

Sorry Geordie, you are normally spot on about issues of happy clapping and moaning, but if you'd have been there tonight, you'd have been as vocal.
It was the worst home performance this season by a country mile. Only Brentford away eclipses it.

A team full of players who don't want to know - and I feel that a lot of them are still pining for the easy days of their old manager.

[ws3]

Good to see everyone not moaning and getting behind the lads, chanting "what a load of rubbish", something we never heard under Merson, took one defeat under KB.

Fantastic!

Sorry Geordie, you are normally spot on about issues of happy clapping and moaning, but if you'd have been there tonight, you'd have been as vocal.
It was the worst home performance this season by a country mile. Only Brentford away eclipses it.

A team full of players who don't want to know - and I feel that a lot of them are still pining for the easy days of their old manager.

Absolutely right.

[Exile]

Was it a physical game? BBC text service had a lot of 'foul by xxxxx xxxxxx on Ishmel Demontagnac' and the like. Sounds like they did their homework more than us.

It's only one game, and there's everything to play for, but it'll take that long and more to undo what's been done to the club over the last couple of seasons.

[BEACON SADDLER]

DISGRACEFUL,SHAMBOLIC,NOT ONE ACCEPTABLE PERFORMANCE ,TO NOT HAVE A SHOT ALL NIGHT IS BEYOND BELIEF,DONT BLAME KB AS HE CAN ONLY WORK WITH WHAT THE IDIOT LEFT HIM BUT PLEASE PLEASE NO MORE HOOFING UP THE PITCH AS THERE IS NOONE THERE CAPABLE OF HOLDING THE BALL
CONFERENCE LEVEL TONIGHT

[Neuromantic]

that was appaling, and i am in total shock and disbelief.

the absolute polar opposite to the tranmere and swansea perforamces.

I blame one man, and im being serious - andrew barrowman. his miss or 'attempt' was the pivotal moment in the match , and apart from being the worst walsall striker i have ever seen, sack him. sack ishmel.

[Stu]

I blame one man, and im being serious - andrew barrowman. his miss or 'attempt' was the pivotal moment in the match , and apart from being the worst walsall striker i have ever seen, sack him. sack ishmel.

You can never blame one man, and despite Kearns saying he was non-existant, he also said that there plenty of others just as bad as him tonight.

You have to wonder what on earth made KB change formation tonight, away from the successful line up of the recent matches, to something new just to combat a team that were below us in the table. Then another switch at half time to a different formation. That's exactly what folk were criticising Merson for.

[saddlerken]

Timm wasn't marked out the game superbly, he didn't need to put much effort other than to be anywhere near him, utterly pathetic, send him back to Man U asap.

This was the worst home performance I have seen this season

Oakes- Dodgy, no confidence, can't kick, can't punch, statitic on his line, got to get a better keeper in the summer
Fox- Tried I suppose
Smith- Terrible passing, lost nearly everything in the air
James- Crap, can't cross, wasted every set piece and corner, can't take people on
Leary- What a shower
Roper- Had an absolute howler, needs Mills beside him, shocking for the 2nd
Gerrard- tried, distribution hopeless
Barrowman- Anonymous
Timm- Needs to be sheared and mashed up to make dog food
Ish- Good player but a total liability, completely ill disciplined
Wright- No support from James, crap
Westwood- Dropped in the crap

The most appalling thing for me was how badly we passed the ball

MOTM Devlin, only player who looked like a proffessional footballer tonight, just, we desperately missed Mills and Osborn.

I have been clearly too cocky about our chances of staying up, I'm still confident but things have to improve quickly, we were woeful, very very vvank! :x

The whole squad needs looking at in the summer, KB has got a right bunch of mis-fits to work with, I feel for him

[geoffwhiting]

Got to agree with ws3 and Jorge14, anyone there tonight witnessed an absolute shocker from the moment we fell behind, it just got worse the longer the game went on.

I thought we were not doing too bad for the first 20 minutes or so, put some decent passes through, one peach through ball by Devlin should have brought a certain goal, but the chance to go 1 up went begging. That could have made so much difference to the game.

When they scored their first it was a total gift - if Sky thought it was a good goal, I disagree. The attacker down the right was allowed to get through 5 men without a challenge, pushed the ball over to the centre of the penalty area, where their scorer was left wide open, centre of goal, and our lot just looked on as he took loads of time waiting for the ball to drop for him. No challenge, and for Oakes, no hope! Are these the same defenders that worked their wotsits off for three away games, or are they the same old same old as before?

Second goal, loads of time and opportunity to clear the ball, why was it skied straight up to drop back into he danger area, who was that, Roper? Absolute gift, total surrender!

Even so, I expected KB to send them out fired up second half and have areal go at Yeovil, but he must have forgotten to light the blue touch paper!

Embarrassing is the only word for it, we could have conceded another three or four through utter and complete mayhem that we created entirely for ourselves.

Yeovil fans will not only be pleased with the effective SIX points and FOUR goals improvement that they've gained over us tonight, but they'll also be laughing all the way home about how easily our useless gang of no-hopers just GAVE them the points, THAT'S what really hurts me tonight - and it really DOES hurt badly!

All optimism blown away in 90 minutes, if you don't believe it, well you just had to be there!

[geoffwhiting]

Agree with Devlin as MoM, and I thought Westwood was excellent, cool skilful and thoughtful. Shame about the other 9 plus 2 !

[WFC_Rob]

Can anyone one on here seriously tell me that Mark Wright is a reasonably good footballer? He was an absolute shambles today & whilst people can say he isn't a right back, he doesn't even have the basic tools to be a footballer. Our first goal was conceded because Mark Wright wouldn't head it, Gerrard came out of position and left a hole at the back. He was taken off for a reason at half time - he was abysmal.
I've been given some stick for defending Westwood, but tonight reinforced what I already knew - he is a very good defender and despite only spending about 40 minutes on the pitch, was our best player by far.
Leary was invisible as was James, Barrowman & Timm. All of these players (maybe with the exception of James who has a problem with consistency) should be removed from the club now. They just don't want it enough.
Nobody can seriously defend Ishmel tonight and I was glad to hear the "you're not fit to wear the shirt" chant. His second booking could easily have been a straight red as he blatantly hacked their player down from behind. The fact of the matter is, he doesn't have enough ability for us to be able to excuse his poor discipline - he was anonymous for almost the whole game tonight.
I would mention some of the other players, but there's no point as the performance was so awful and they don't deserve my time. Frankly, we were lucky to only lose 2-0.

[ToeJoe Jnr]

The worry is that while we can go away and keep it tight with the hope of nicking a goal, this will not work at home. We will face teams that do exactly the same as us away from home, but should they nick a goal, there is very little chance of us pulling one back as our creativity amounts to zilch. Where was plan B tonight, because if it was putting Timm in the hole behind the striker, but then continuing to hoof it forward 40 mile up in the air, then we are shafted! 7 games at home and left and our destiny is still in our hands, well i think this could be right to the wire. It will be interesting to see the response we get on Saturday.

As for the response from the crowd, as others have mentioned, richly deserved!! Buyoed by some good results away from home, new managers first game at home, and we are served that tripe. Hardly confidence boosting stuff for the fans.

Roll on Saturday, and hopefully a kick up the arse for that lot during the rest of the week, because they need it.

[Pedagogue]

The question on most Saddlers' fans' lips:-

Andrew Barrowman - WHY????

He has got to be one of the worst so-called centre-forwards ever to wear a Walsall shirt - almost "Banton-esque"* in his uselessness. Quite what Messrs Broadhurst and Halsall see in him is beyond me (and most other Walsall fans).

* for the benefit of our teenage readers - ask your Dad.

[Cheesebag]

I couldn't watch the last 8 minutes, just deflated with the lack of penetration and effort.

Agreed Leamore, Barrowman? Why?....

Need to sleep now.

[Jorge14]

The frustrating thing with Barrowman though is that there is the glimpse of some class.
Some of his build up play is really impressive - yet once he gets in that final 20 yards he loses all confidence.
I wouldn't mind if he was sh!t, but he has come through at Rangers and at Blues, he's obviously not sh!t, he just doesn't care.

[shrewsbury saddler]

What makes it even more frustrating was the for the first 5-10 minutes we looked ok.played a simple passing game with a view to geeting the ball wide or low into the forwards.then,all of a sudden,Leary and Smith decide to have a competion to see who can make the most outlandish overhead long ball and we never looked the same again.absolutely dismal.

[Geordiesaddler]

Good to see everyone not moaning and getting behind the lads, chanting "what a load of rubbish", something we never heard under Merson, took one defeat under KB.

Fantastic!

Sorry Geordie, you are normally spot on about issues of happy clapping and moaning, but if you'd have been there tonight, you'd have been as vocal.
It was the worst home performance this season by a country mile. Only Brentford away eclipses it.

A team full of players who don't want to know - and I feel that a lot of them are still pining for the easy days of their old manager.

No I wouldn't have been as vocal, I give managers the benefit of the doubt, as I did with Merson more than once. I didn't chant "what a load of rubbish" when we lost 5-3 at Oldham in his seventh game (plus a pre-season and after a relegation) in charge, having surrendered a 2-0 lead for the second game running. Likewise under Lee when we lost at Wolves, Cov, Sheff Wed at home etc.

Madds Timm, James and Leary have no place in a relegation scrap, and Borrowman's 18 month contract is on a par with Joe Broad's. All Merson's doing and KB is doing his best, 5 points from 4 games is ok IMO. And the point I'm making is it's a pity the suddenly voluble, discontented Bescoteers hadn't found their voices 4 months ago - then we wouldn't be in this mess to start with.

[SaigonSaddler]

That's the first game I've seen since coming home - I'm not overly impressed I have to say. It might be just me but as I recall we used to have shots at goal and even scored on the odd occasion. Defenders used to defend and midfielders used to scrap and pass balls to feet.

I suppose the only consolation is in the fact that we were playing Celtic and not some no-hopers from League one. :roll:

[shrewsbury saddler]

That's the first game I've seen since coming home - I'm not overly impressed I have to say. It might be just me but as I recall we used to have shots at goal and even scored on the odd occasion. Defenders used to defend and midfielders used to scrap and pass balls to feet.

I suppose the only consolation is in the fact that we were playing Celtic and not some no-hopers from League one. :roll:

WE certainly made them look like Celtic.

[philthesaddler]

Well, just got back, initial thoughts.

1st half:

We gifted them 2 goals
We missed Pablo and Ozzy big time
Leary was poor
Devlin was excellent, Barrowman was poor

2nd half:

went 352, but theyd got the lead and were defending well, we were still 2nd to everything.

All in all, credit to Yeovil, they fought for every ball, and deserved the win - but we missed Ozzy's organising, and pablo's enforcement, I wouldnt want barrowman to start for us again, he's uselsess.

Final bit, i thought Ish's sending off a little harsh on the lad, the ref could easily have just said "thats your last chance", and the chants of "your not fit to wear the shirt" were also harsh. Neither is Mark Wright imho, but we dont sing that at him.

Gillingham won also tonight, so effectively we've negated our own hard earner 3 points on friday night with this result, we have to win on saturday.

[Saddler Jim]

An absolute disgrace,thats the only way I can decribe it.if Yoevil go down at the end of this season on goal diffence they can only blame themselves,they could and should have stuffed us 6 or 7,we just had'nt got a clue,how ever there keeper never froze to death with what he had to do I will never know,it was like men against boys,the longer it went on the more the worse we played,the first time this season I have seen supporters walking out with 30 minutes to go,all saying that they could'nt stand it any longer,just about puts this display in a nutshell,the rest of us are shell shocked,never thought we could play this bad and never hope we do again. :oops: :oops: :oops:

[London Saddler]

Predictable pathetic garbage from an increasingly sad shambolic club. Well the Broadhurst honeymoon didnt last long did it? Taking into account the fact that we were at home, the importance of the game and the calibre of the opposition, that was not only the worst performance of the season, but far far worse than anything i have seen under Merson

I had some pretty harsh words to say after the appointment of Broadhurst. I didnt bother posting for a while after that as most posts were very positive Broadhust as time went on and i didnt want to b accused of not backing him or giving him a chance

Yeovil r an awful team on a dreadful run but sud have won by 4 or 5. Their players, management staff and small sprinkling of supporters cud hardly believe their luck on seeing such an amazingly useless team as ours and seeing us will have given them great confidence to see a team far worse than them

Defensively we were absolute crap. Oakes was super crap despite one great save in the 2nd half. No chance with the goals. His kicking was laughable. His throw outs even worse. 2 spring to mind. One in the first half to Devlin on the half way line who had some huge defender sticking to him. Ball was lost straight away. One in 2nd half to Gerrard which was a hospital throw. They intercepted, nearly scored and Gerrard nearly got a nasty injury. Wright did little wrong yet little right. Ropes had his worst game of the season and his huge blunder in failing to deal with a simple ale house ball handed them their 2nd goal on a plate. Gerrard poor. Fox absolutely abysmal. He is far far worse than Aranhalde was. Aranhalde was crap at defending but ok at going forward. Fox is even worse at defending and non existent going forward. His passing is worse than Ropes and i counted at least 10-15 aimless balls from Fox into touch or to a Yeovil player. But he made 1 hard tackle in the 2nd half so that sud keep his legion of fans happy. Westwood looked ok when he came on in 2nd half. First goal had to b seen to b believed. A Yeovil player ran thro several players none of whom cud b bothered to make a challenge. He crossed and another Yeovil player in the box chested it down(completely unmarked), turned, lined up his shot (even then no one went near him) and calmly slotted past Oakes

In midfield, we were out thought, outfought and outplayed. Leary is an awful awful player. He runs around like a headless chicken, looks very very uncomfortable when he has the ball, has no pace, cant pass and no creativity.The sooner he is sent back to Luton reserves the better. I like Smith but he struggled today. Ismael got sent off. I just wish he wud take his man on more as he yet again had the beating of him. Dont know what he was sent of for as i left (like most others) well before the end. I like James but like everyone he was 3rd rate. He missed 2 sitters and at set pieces he cudnt even do the basics like cross the ball into the box(went out all the time). Yeovil played 3-5-2 and for some reason that seemed to bamboozole our midfield. Timms came on at half time(for Wright) and continued his form in looking utterly rubbish and clueless. The sooner he is sent back to Man U 3rd team the better

And i havnt even got onto the strikers yet. Devlin was the only player who tried and comes out of this match with any credit whatsoever. But we started this match yet again with the Superdonkey(Barrowman). He is the WORST STRIKER I HAVE SEEN AT WALSALL FC. He cant head the ball, cant shoot, cant hold the ball up, cant pass, cant finish. Was he really good enough to get into Blues reserve team??? He is basically non league standard but thanks to the clown (Merse) we have got him for 18 months!!! The Yeovil goalkeeper in fact didnt have a shot to save in the whole match. We also didnt create a single chance in our last game against Oldham

Bradford won today. Gillingham beat Brentford despite being down to 9 men. We r back in bottom 4. We all expected Broadhurst to give the team a rollicking at half time and expected a rip roaring 2nd half. It didnt happen. High aimless balls into touch or to the Yeovil defenders continued. Basically the team that doesnt score goals is the one that tends to go down

At least one of the myths has gone. That we r a decent team that needed a decent manager to do something. No, minus Fryatt, we r not. The players r not good enough and we r exactly where we deserve to b in this very poor league. Simple reason why we r going down. Last time this season, we had Fryatt, Jorge and Joachim up front. This time we have the likes of Barrowman and Fitzerald. Enough said

[SaigonSaddler]

If I had to sum up this game in one hyphenated word it would be: Arse-trumpet

Chances of relegation: probable

Crowd interaction: negative

Overall enjoyment: negligable

Suitable smiley: :x

[redalways]

We lost because we had nothing in the centre of midfield, nothing wide, nothing up front, a dodgy defence at times and a keeper who can make brilliant saves to offset the countless howlers. Not much wrong then!

Seriously missed Ossie and Mills. I would seriously like to miss James, Leary, Barrowman and Demon for the rest of the season - or better still, permanently

Playing at home is so different to playing away. KB is going to have to make major changes for saturday, either in who he picks or how tonights shower play in future. I am sure he did not tell them to play the long ball, its what defenders do when the midfield is non existent.

Better to have the rubbish now than in the last 2 or 3 games.

[dinkydotsaddler]

Could not agree more London Saddler, other than Timm - I thought he looked OK - he got the ball a couple of times and ran past a couple of men and then passed (believe it or not) to a Walsall player (a skill no other Walsall player appeared to possess tonight). His only mistake was passing when he should have taken it himself. Tonight was very very depressing. I have believed for a long time that JB will take the club under and I think that is what I am witnessing. Nothing changed after half-time - you would at least expect them to come out with a bit of fight - but nothing. They may be fit but they don't seem to have trained tactically together. The whole match was a farce and I certainly agree that we didn't see anything as bad under Merson. I do have a problem though with the fact that Westwood was booed before he even got on the pitch, I actually don't mind Westwood but even if I thought he was crap I think he deserves the chance in every game he plays to be judged on that performance, even if you are thinking it you should not boo your own player before he starts playing. It will knock his confidence and at the end of the day if he is going to play he may aswell do his best. :cry: :roll: :evil:

[Registered Saddler]

I might be out on my lonesome here but I actually thought we played better tonight than we did against Oldham. That's not to credit the performance of anyone involved against Yeovil in any way, but just to say IMO the Oldham game was ten times worse.

It would be interesting to know what exactly our game plan was. It appeared to be boot the ball as high as you can, preferably to someone wearing a green shirt or, if not, out of play. And that was it. Somehow among that we managed to create at least three golden chances - Barrowman in the clear, James missed the ball from 0 yards and fluffed a free header. Yeovil were there for the taking. Incredibly, they didn't really play that much better than we did. But they wanted it more and deserved the three points. Some of the individuals involved need to take a long hard look at themselves - James, Leary, Roper, Barrowman. In fact, everyone was way below par.

I will end on an optimistic note. Judging by KB's reign so far this was an out of character performance. We have a chance to put things right on Saturday. Lets use this as a wake up call and battle till the end of the season because this relegation scrap is not over but it is in our hands.

[Bristol Fan]

What a truly, utterly, demoralisingly pitiful performance that was. Easily - EASILY - our worst home performance of the season. "What a load of rubbish" was far milder than the team deserved. Just utter, utter garbage.

Credit must be given to Yeovil for the way they played - ie, to stop us from playing, hope to sneak a goal and then shut up shop - but we offered just absolutely nothing. Defensively, we were as shambolic as ever under Merson, gifting them the two goals, and very nearly gifting them two more with howlers from Roper and Oakes. Very odd team selection (MARK WRIGHT IS NOT A FULL BACK AND NEVER WILL BE), strange substitution at half time - unless Wright was injured then it simply had to be the completely ineffective, out-of-his-depth Demontagnac who was substituted - a midfield completely bereft of quality, with Smith just not performing and Leary a complete joke - and up front - Barrowman - my god. Someone mentioned Dale Banton above - Barrowman's not fit to clean his boots (or indeed those of Mike Cecere or Jason Lillis).

It was a pitiful display, more long ball than I've ever seen from a Walsall team before (frequently directed towards the midget Paul Devlin, being marked by a seven-foot giant).

A display worthy of a team that will be relegated. Just what the hell happened to the team which gave such spirited and impressive displays in the previous three games? Is it just because we were missing Mills and Osborn? We certainly missed them, but surely to god we had a team capable of playing better than that.

Things are NOT looking good.

[geoffwhiting]

Been out for a few drinks - thought it might make me feel better about this shambles - but Sky was on in the local and after seeing the utterly pathetic stupidity of those goals again on TV, I've come home feeling even worse.

Shocking, utterly shocking, I'd have expected it of a Merson side and wouldn't have been surprised or perhaps even disappointed, but given the expectation after three great away performances, this is devastating, and has shattered any optimism I'd built up since KB arrived.

This had relegation written all over it. Sorry to be so negative, I don't want to be, but that's the truth that anyone there tonight has witnessed.

[cal's a saddler]

I was so looking forward to last nights game after not seeing the saddlers in what seems an absolute age. But I have to say I have never witnessed a performance like that in the 10years or so I have been watching them. Apart from the first 20mins or so when I thought Devlin was playing the game on his own we were absolute Crap!
I really thought that it being KB's first home game he'd have them fired up for it but they were totally dreadful! Even coming out for the second half I thought well maybe he will have given them the rocket they needed! But no! if anything they were worse! I have never wished I'd stayed home and watched tv rather than go see the saddlers in my life like i did last night.
Ive paid my money to go to home games, I give my support at home in person and away in spirit, but the players on the pitch last night gave NOTHING they were a disgrace :evil:

My only hope is that I never again get to see them play that badly again. I hope Saturdays game could never be as bad as last night. Please.