Most liked posts in thread: Zeli Ismail Signs

All the better

 

And that’s the reason he’s in league two. If he was as consistent as we all want he’d be in the championship minimum.

 

Sounds like Bobby Petta syndrome.

 

Walsall played mostly 4-4-2 last season but quite a few 4-3-3 and also other formations on several games. This probably would not help players struggling to find the consistency needed to avoid relegation. Maybe Bowyer knows what will suit Ismail best.

Signing another winger makes it look like Bowyer is going to play 4-1-4-1 more than 5-3-2. (These were his preferred formations prior to joining City.) I'm guessing that means O'Connor will play midfield anchor, right in front of the centre backs and occasionally dropping in as needed. I suspect that will suit him better and give the team more aerial backbone. That might allow Ismail, Scannell, Anderton, Akpan and other midfielders a little more chance to push up, which I can imagine might suit all of them better. Let's face it, they were all crap at defending last year!

 

I don't think O'Connor will be in Bowyer's plans just yet. He'll get rid of him the first opportunity he gets.

 

Hopefully a gem

 

see it the other way round. maybe he relishes playing in front of a big crowd or an occasion. Better suited to Bradford then. The most exciting thing about Walsall is that you can see it from the motorway

 

Do you know if they are intended as first choice or squad fillers? You don't know, I don't know

 

they are the same thing. we should be signing players to get us out of this league. If they do then they are clearly good enough for league one

 

Four good signings and I think we will do well left back. Centre half Paudie would be good centre midfield and centre forward a good spine and we will be fine

 

What i am saying is that i think if you finish top of division 2 then you have a team which is better than a fair few teams at the bottom of division 1. There's not many teams which get promoted then relegated the next season div 2 to div 1, unlike other divsiions where the divide is a lot bigger

 

If we won the league then I'd maybe agree. Not sure that would be the same if we limped over the line in the play offs.

 

Explain where you get “an average league one winger” from and I will try to answer this.

 

I started by saying that someone quoted the average L2 player is on £1.5k a week. Obviously it’s guess work, just as it is from you to rubbish the figures. In reality, nobody knows, but it doesn’t stop us making an educated guess based on what folk have said.

 

No, it was me who gave the average wage for a L2 player - it’s circa £1700.00 p/w.

So, you then assumed the average player within the squad earned the average weekly wage.

I highly doubt that any of our signings thus far are on anywhere near £1700.00 per week - apart from perhaps Ismail.

Pure guess work.

 

Least likely to leave has to be Riley.

Unless he's willing to accept a pay cut to play football, which doesn't appear to be the case based on Hopkin's comments earlier in the season.

Genuinely think this guy's league career is finished, so he's just going to sit on his pay check.

Not heard any rumblings to suggest anything else.

 

I've got a fence post at work going spare. I'll rent the club that for just 1/3rd of what O'Connor is on.

 

Ironic that you spell cheque the American way, he may be heading there apparently.

 

Agree to a certain extent. Last seasons failures don’t exactly fill one with confidence that we have the quality we need. That said I would argue that even amongst the tripe we had to deal with, there is quality amongst them. How the manager ‘manages’ and sets them up can make a significant difference.

My question was however, what insights do we as supports really have to make a call that these four new signings so far lack real quality? French aside, they’re all relatively young but with a fair amount of football league experience/exposure. Who’s to know they aren’t able to become solid first teamer’s this season, under the right management and direction?