D3D4 Walsall correspondent and columnist Darren Young takes a look back on what has been a surprisingly solid transfer window for the Saddlers…

A Week’s A Long Time In Football

I always knew a week was a long time in politics. Just ask Boris Johnson. Bet that holiday is dragging at the moment. But it can be a hell of a timespan in football too as the last seven days proved.

Last Thursday – with a week until that dreaded transfer window closed (if you ignore that you can still sign loan players and free agents) – Walsall had, I assumed after reading the fans’ sites and social media, already been relegated.

Today, as the dust settles on another window closing, we are five new players better off, and with a win in the first game (another very unexpected event last week), we’re now a potential surprise package in League One.

The truth might be somewhere in-between but that’s fine. A week ago, I was checking the ‘lowest points total ever’ stats so anything more has to be a bonus. What we can now say is that we will be competitive and that looked unlikely for a while, but it also tells us a lot about the way that manager Dean Keates operates.

After the excitement of a friendly win over Ajax it was tempting – and touted – that we should sign up all of the triallists who had taken part in that game. After heavy, and chastening, losses to Stoke and Villa, the win over Holland’s finest gave us cause for optimism and the triallists all looked the part, but it became easy – with such a threadbare squad – to reimagine we had beaten an Ajax in their 70s pomp, and not a youthful XI in a pre-season warm-up.

We were desperate. That’s all. As fans, we could see the likes of Peterborough and AFC Wimbledon adding to their squads on an almost daily basis and we fans wanted a bit of that. In its place there was ridicule, rumours and resignation (from Twitter at least!). That Dean Keates kept promising there was more to come didn’t help but that was because it wasn’t what we wanted to hear, and he couldn’t give us that. Well, not at that moment anyway.

But, one-by-one, the triallists were sent packing -deemed not good enough – and last Friday morning we reached the nadir where it looked like a team of last manager leftovers and unproven kids would start the season against last-season’s surprise package, Plymouth Argyle.

Then three new players came in such quick succession it made the three gold medals on Super Saturday look almost pedestrian. Three points and six days later, we were at it again, this time adding much needed depth right up to the deadline on transfer deadline day; a day usually reserved for waiting for Troy Deeney to be sold or for one of our best players to hop it Cinderella-style just before midnight.

This time, it was us spending money and handing out lavish contracts. Shock, delight and nose-bleeds aplenty amongst us supporters but genuine belief that the manager had got it right – despite the last-minute nature of it all – in the end.

But could it have been much different? Look at it another way; if Premier League and Championship clubs have players we want then they aren’t going to let them go unless they’ve got new players in first. So Keates has to decide between getting them early – even if they aren’t his top target – or waiting until those he really wants are available. He could have gambled on two or three triallists, yes, but he gambled on the long-game instead. I saw some premature (and slightly immature) comments that he was to blame for a ‘shambolic’ pre-season and made before last Friday, of course, but it wasn’t a shambles – it was a calculated risk. After all, the team you start the season with is more important than the one you have before it starts.

And this transfer window also showed that getting the players you want wasn’t plain sailing. Many clubs (even with PL riches) didn’t do as much business as their fans wanted. For every Wolves (Mendes FC) there was a Newcastle, who only brought a Swansea reserve and House of Fraser before the season starts on Friday.

Even Manchester United and Spurs found it hard to attract or get value from purchases in an inflated, post-World Cup marketplace, and while that won’t have impacted on Walsall’s shopping spree in the cheaper stores, it does indicate that managers and clubs had to be canny, persuasive and above all, patient. Thankfully, ours was.

So, what of the signings? They came in three waves (a 4-3-2 if you will) so I’ll keep them what way.

Early Birds

The initial business was quick (right after the end of last season) and welcome as Keates wants to play with wingers and centre forwards and his intent couldn’t have been clearer with the signing of an old-fashioned number nine in Andy Cook, fresh from scoring at Wembley for Tranmere, and pacey wide players Zeli Ismail and Josh Ginnelly – both who’d had previous loan spells with the club. A reliable and experienced back up keeper was also sensibly recruited.

Freaky Friday

After weeks of nothingness – and a long-term injury to one of our brighter prospects – that all but killed the early pre-season optimism, we had begun to think that we’d go into the actual league season with one central defender and two full backs we couldn’t get rid of. Of course, this was never going to happen, but they left it late before a flurry of new players joined before midday – thus being eligible for the big kick-off. Centre-half, Jack Fitzwater, one of last season’s pluses, re-joined for a year from West Brom and brought his promising team mate and speedy right back, Kane Wilson, with him on a similar loan agreement. But it was the middle signing, a non-league striker with a point to prove, Morgan Ferrier – from Boreham Wood – that really raised the pulse. Big, fast and fairly prolific at National League level, he joined for an undisclosed (aren’t they all?) fee and justified it within thirty hours as his pace really hurt Plymouth for an hour on his debut.

Deadline Day Double

I read a brilliant line – we’re not very quick learners in Walsall – from a fan that said, ‘I loved the signings last week but a bit disappointed that we’ve not signed anyone this week’. It was on Wednesday – a full 24 hours before the transfer window closed – and therefore way too early. We like to leave it late now, remember? So, after a whole day of will they-won’t they? rumour and speculation, they did with two more players. Isiah Osbourne, another ex-Saddler, signed after leaving Forest Green Rovers. The initial shoulder shrug tempered a little by the fact he is everything we don’t have in our under-resourced midfield – a big, physical presence – and was very effective on occasions during his previous spell but just couldn’t get fit enough. If FGR have helped him achieve that, we might have a much more reliable player on our hands.

But it was the ninth and final signing (although expect us to get a loan or two before the end of August to bolster the defence) that turned heads. Josh Gordon signed just before the deadline from Leicester City, again for a fee and this one rumoured to be a six-figure one. Once considered the next potential Jamie Vardy, he is another very fast forward player (wide or central) who knows where the net is. And most of the money for all this came from sending a player to Coventry (in return for £150K+) who most people would have driven there themselves and not even taken any money to cover the petrol.

Conclusion

Who knows? Bringing in lots of players means nothing if they don’t gel or get their act together but we have cause for hope. League One defenders don’t deal well with pace – Walsall never have – and free-kicks and corners are now so much more likely to end in a goal and we have height and delivery options there too. Above all, we seem to have a bunch of players who can generate excitement and goal-scoring opportunities and it should certainly be interesting to watch – and you can’t say that about too many seasons at The Banks’s Stadium. The defence remains a concern for now, and we might need to score more goals to make up for it, but after years of relying on one lone striker to do everything we now have three of them fighting for a place and for the ball when we get a penalty.

Oh, what a week!