In the latest of his regular columns, Scott Brotherton takes a look at the Saddlers' play-off chances and considers the impact of peaking too soon;
With their play-off push finally ended, it’s time for the Saddlers to look towards another summer of retaining and rebuilding. Dean Smith will again be faced with the unenviable task of trying to convince his key players to stay at the Banks’s, while also attempting to strengthen the squad.
On a budget like ours that is a tall order and it is no surprise that players often leave for other clubs. It begins to dawn on them that, with the same rebuild happening every year, Walsall Football Club seems to be going nowhere.
Take a look at last summer. Jamie Paterson left for Nottingham Forest in the Championship and is doing really well there now, but both Will Grigg and Febian Brandy left for teams in the same league as us – Brentford and Sheffield United.
This angered lots of fans, especially with youth-product Grigg, but when you look at the league table it speaks for itself. Brentford have just got promoted and are clearly an ambitious side, while United could well sneak above the Saddlers this season and will certainly invest and have a better shot at promotion next year.
In fact I am almost glad Walsall won’t make it into the play-offs. Over the course of two games we could easily get promoted and the current squad is just not ready to take on the Championship.
Of course the manager would be able to recruit more high-profile players by dangling the carrot of the Championship to push deals through, but not enough in just one transfer window to make the squad competitive in a league full of such quality.
The best comparison to draw is Yeovil Town who went up through the play-offs last season. They, like Walsall, were tipped for relegation and they, like Walsall, were a surprise package, eventually squeezing into League One’s top six.
But now they are on the verge of relegation and heading straight back to where they started. That is the problem with teams that have one exceptional season: they cannot maintain the momentum.
You have to build over a number of years to be successful in the next tier. Brentford and Wolves are great examples and they will be in the Championship next year.
Brentford were a post’s width away from going up last year, before they were pipped to second place by Doncaster Rovers and beaten in the play-off final by Yeovil Town. They obviously had a strong squad back then and made a number of additions, including Grigg, which means they are better prepared to go up now.
Wolves meanwhile are still benefiting from the remnants of their Premier League squad of two years ago, and the parachute payments and financial backing means they are already a club set for life in the Championship.
My point is that you have to work your way up to these things and get stronger over time. Walsall always improve some areas and lose vital links in others, until one season it all reaches a crescendo like last year. But unless they get promoted there and then players will leave and you are back to square one.
Ninth place last campaign and a similar finish for the Saddlers in 2013/14 would show their potential. However, an on par or worse performance next season would indicate to our top players that this is not the place to be if you want serious progression.
In the end getting promoted this time around would have done us more harm than good. We need two or three years of solidity and noticeable improvement before we are ready to make such a massive step.
By: Scott Brotherton.
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