Bradshaw is going to struggle all season....

..... if we continue to play this way.

We may be better with a target man to aim at, who can hold it up. Not necessarily instead of Bradshaw, but to help him.

Winnall cannot do this, but may himself benefit in home games from someone holding it up.

Watkins was deficient in all areas today. Good footballer on his day but inconsistent and neither an out and out winger nor a forward.

We spend much of the time having to lump it up from the back four or even from our deep lying midfielders, hoping it'll stick somewhere.

This is because we're playing against teams full of smart footballers who cut off the other options.

Payne has done well. But if there's brass to spend, it needs to be spent in order to give us an out ball, and also maybe summat for Kent and Hammill to aim at from the sides.

 

Got to agree. Bradshaw seems fairly decent on the ball when he has it and grafts like **** to get it but always seems to have his back to goal. He's the type of striker that needs to be in and around the box and not dropping deep or dealing with long balls to him all the time.

Payne with Watkins up top for me against Rotherham next Saturday.

 

If anything I say Watkins is one of the most consistent in our team and he can play both upfront and on the wing comfortably but I cant comment on today I wasn't there

 

I remember feeling the same about Winnall in some parts of the first half of last season. I don't think that Hecky and everyone else have taken him on without having a good view of how he will fit in in the longer term. He clearly has ability, so let's wait and see?

 

I'm saying he needs help more than he can't cut it.

 

Be reight when Sam's fit. Still think he'll get 15+ goals in this league.
Take the best striker out of most teams and they'd struggle. 9th be happy to still be there when he's back.

 

Sounds a bit like what RRain was saying.

 

Buy this man a drink. Been saying same thing for last 7 days. Couldn't believe the moaning n groaning aimed at Bradshaw on Tuesday night

 

Red Rain caused a stir by complaining essentially about how organised we were.

Which was perverse.

You need to be organised in order to counteract the effect of (generally but not necessarily) more talented and certainly more expensive players.

Think Leicester.

We can do it, but at present it it's coming back from upfront too quickly.

Not sure if Red Rain distilled it down to that.

 

Bradshaw is definitely struggling to see how he fits into the way we play, but he is working hard and it will come. From what I understand he played much of last season on his own, a Walsall fan says that was when he was at his best. They moved the ball through midfield he was getting threaded balls rather than longer balls.
Payne has the more of the attributes for that role, he is more physical and has looked better.
Today first half the ball wasn't sticking, but for most of that first half Hammill and Kent were not getting any joy against their full backs and their system was causing us problems. When we got the tempo going we got on top.
Marley didn't have his best game today, but he has looked good up front as a target man type of player but there is more to him than that.
Perhaps Bradshaw might need to be on his own with us playing 3 in the middle plus both Hammill and Kent cut inside off there wing and could play him in when they don't shoot. I like what we are doing though, two missed one on ones have cost us today.

 

From what I saw last year Walsall played a 4-4-1-1 with romain sawyers just off Bradshaw. They mainly tried to pass the ball either wide or in through sawyers to instead of hitting it long.

We might be able to do something similar with moncur maybe on occasions