Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 19 October 2024

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Wilson (87)

Walsall 4 Matt (56), Jellis (69), Lowe (74), Johnson (90+1)

Attendance: 5,984 (434 away fans)

They'd paid for it, they were darn well going to get their pound of flesh. They chose Minavan Wilson as the dead fish wrapped in paper delivered audibly to their door.

Only one man was stopping them and starting us, the glue that kept our rocking chair together just that little bit longer - sensational Scotty Jackson! But as he isn't contracted to Town, the letter of the law forces us to discount our best defender and leave the laurel leaves in the dusty bin.

We must pose the question: Denver Hume, was he really all bad?

Denver needs a bit less of the get thee behind me winger, and a bit more of the come on in mate and have a cup of tea.

Calling Denver Hume a defender is like claiming you're the next Yehudi Menuhin just because you fiddle your travel expenses.

Hey, haven't we learned to just ignore the usual guff from the gruff Gafferman after a loss about Town being "dominant" and "we should be two up by half time"? Could and should are different words, with different meanings Davey Boy. There were nuggets of non-nonsense though:

"We had less answers to what they were doing as the game wore on…It reminded me very much of last season's game."

Yeah, us too Dave, us too.

More on this

No snark here, just hark the wise words of the Wittgenstein of Walsall as he ruthlessly reduces this Town to its frozen core: they freeze in fear.

"We had a good opportunity when Tommy goes down to speak and we felt we needed to be a little bit more on the front foot and that half a yard more physical.

For the second half of the first half we really started to do that. The goal that was chalked off, I thought that maybe had a bit more of a psychological bearing on the opposition than maybe we realised at the time. They started to be real fearful in that second period and that's what we spoke about at half-time. Being relentless, being ruthless and really being on the front foot."

More on this

The data does not lie: a year on year improvement of 33%!

We've definitely been sussed by the savvier shakers and movers in this mundane league: smother McEachran to stop Town, attack the full-backs to win at Town. McEachran was dealt with and neither he, nor the rest of 'em, could deal with this amazing innovation from opponents. It would be nice, one day, to have full-backs who aren't merely labelled full-backs for the sake of analytics.

It would be nice to have a team that doesn't dissolve when bigger boys make nasty comments behind their back.

We keep seeing and saying the same thing: where's the personality?

Looking back, we could have played it differently, won a few more moments and then who can tell? Town just need more security, not feeding football fantasies and the freedom for flankers to roam. The canary is still chirruping.

Took half an hour to work us out and then, when they saw the state of our shoes, they shooed Town out of the room, behind the rope line, and back to our place in the queue with the hoi polloi.

They are relentlessly decent, persistently professional from their heads down to their toes, with no fluffy bunnies in their basket. They did their homework and remembered it.

This Walsall are not Donny, more a Gillingham who can score, a Notts County who can defend. Solid, organised, savvy, should have a yabba-dabba-doo time, a dabba-doo time, have a gay old time this season.

Where are the happy days? On days like these they seem so hard to find, many have already closed their mind.

Mr S Jackson

Our Scotty did his best, trying to hold the defence together, making some fantastically timed interventions just as the Saddlemen were about to strike. He even appealed for offside when they scored, but alas, the linesmen were not listening. What more could he do to help us and not get arrested?

Wacko Jacko was doing his best in trying circumstances: 8.888888888!

As Town blundered Walsall plundered.

In a word: squishy