Lower League Summer – League One

Walsall’s Youth Go Their Seperate Ways

Whoever is ultimately responsible for a talented Swindon team being picked apart, it’s almost certainly down to mistakes made by someone within the club. The same can’t be said about Walsall. A year ago, after surviving a relegation battle two years in a row while playing a combative and pragmatic style of football, the Saddlers’ manager and former youth team boss Dean Smith made a bold decision. Rather than investing in the kind of reliable, proven pros who’d be guaranteed to ‘do a job’ but thrill no-one, the decision was made to base the team around youth talent and gambles from lower divisions.

The bold choices paid off, with Walsall’s 9^th placed finish being fuelled by young local lads. Will Grigg scored 20 goals; Jamie Paterson grabbed 13 and George Bowerman scored seven, all three being youth products aged 22 or under.But during the summer, Grigg joined Brentford, Paterson moved to Nottingham Forest, and Febian Brandy, snapped up on a free transfer before grabbing seven goals cutting infield from the right wing, moved to Sheffield United.

Investing so much playing time in young players will always be a gamble, and the massive inconsistency the Saddlers went through last year could be seen as an almost inevitable consequence. Walsall had only two defeats in the first nine, followed up immediately by six defeats in the next eightas part of a 13 game winless run. This in turn was followed by six victories in eight. I’d forgotten how bizarrely quick their shift between excellent and poor form was, and the inexperience in the squad could well be a factor.

Ideally, last year’s inconsistency would be considered part of a learning curve, with the young Saddlers learning not to get knocked back too hard by losses. It’s a real shame to see one of the division’s smaller teams, already with the odds stacked against them, doing all of the ‘right’ things we want our clubs to do, then a year later forced to start again from scratch.

On that cheerful note, good luck to all the teams in the forthcoming season!