Cod Almighty | Diary
Saddlers? Well...
24 August 2026
A good drive, an excellent game and a rubbish curry meant Saturday for Middle and I was a mixed bag. Bitter-sweet, you might say, like the packet of Munchies left in the car that turned into a biscuity/chocolatey soup by the time we returned to the hot retail car park. Or perhaps like allowing so many dangerous crosses into the box yet still defending them stoutly.
Before we get into what was a very entertaining game, let's remember that this was Walsall boss Lee Grant's first home game. He won't have many tougher this season. Every drop of sweat, every metre run and every tackle flown into as the 16 Saddlers worked to impress their new boss and their home crowd was matched by 13 Mariners still intent on impressing Artell and the travelling faithful.
Just 13? Walker and Andrews have been added to the injury list, the latter for a couple of months. Another man made of glass, it seems. But forget that for now. Your View from the Weekend Diary was left proud and completely unsurprised by the strength of the display on Saturday. Defenders defended, midfielders snapped and passed, forwards pressed, and all was as it should and was expected to be. A lot of the pre-season expectation and confidence was justified in this performance.
Not all of it though. The two league performances show we are going to lose very few games, but the win column won't have the numbers we need. Who's going to score the goals? Let's look at Saturday's front three.
In this diary's previous incarnation with View from the Findus, there was a feature: Vernam Watch. It was a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the winger's contributions before he went down with his inevitable season-troubling injuries. He's our best player so we should enjoy him while we can, sort of thing. I had to stop it because his long run in the side meant I was shining an unfair spotlight on every mistake he made and every spell he cast with his magic feet. We are not a one-man team.
I'm not bringing Vernam Watch back, but CV didn't bring any magic on Saturday. Often annoyed or impatient, he had one of those games when he looked like he was trying to force it, leading Middle to point out he was bullied. Last season's winner of A46 Diary's Jack Lester award for made-me-feel-most-special-this-season sadly made me feel most frustrated.
This is still Vernam 2.0, however, and he was in the right place at the right time for the key moments of the first half. Yes, he missed what was the best chance of the game and was also too easily pressed after taking up the excellent through-ball from evermore excellent Doyle, but he remains the one to make us tick.
On the other side of the front three, Amaluzor put in a near-faultless display of workmanship. He's the opposite of the player he was this time last year. Gone is the maverick, and now the dancing feet are shod in Artell steel. A League Two Grealish, he's had the fun coached out of him. That makes him a better team player and a fitter, stronger version of what he was, but, and it's a but with a heavy sigh, I miss that bit of unpredictability.
And Cook. He's slow, his feet are heavy, he has no grace. That could've been Cook when he was 21, so, I'm not looking for him to be faster or more agile, but in this hot summer we need our AC to be cooling those opposition defenders more effectively. That said, he wins plenty of flicks, but his isolation means they're not effective. Morgan looks great through the middle. Will he be ready to start next week and let Cook come on to bully tired defenders? That win column might depend on it.
In the rest of the team, Doyle is very exciting and the Jamestown rhyming twins, Turi and Kacurri, Grimsby's armed and armoured Mary-Kate and Ashley, continue to impress. All three swiftly, aggressively and cutely pocketed the opposition. Artell said he wants Turi to improve on his offensive play, so he must've blinked as Turi's first-time pass to Sweeney set up our best chance of the second half. That pass had middle child calling on no lesser a name than Messi.
Do I name and shame that rubbish curry house? I would never be so crass. But, if you ever find yourself in Walsall in a hot, crammed carpark, listening to hooting, tooting cars and fruiting language as some drivers wish fatal accidents on others, while a sickly-smelling doobie smokes near your open window and you happen to check for nearby Trustpilot-recommended restaurants and there's a curry house just half a mile away... better not to bother and be patient instead. As patient as we must be this week as we wait for new signings that are not made of glass.