Everyone gets a look at Walsall’s Bescot stadium as they pass by driving on the M6, but under Mat Sadler’s management the League Two-topping Saddlers are worth a look
Possession is supposedly nine-tenths of the law in football, but nobody told high-flying Walsall boss Mat Sadler.
In a reassuring antidote to Pepball – pretentious playing out from the back with defenders who can’t pass the salt – Sadler’s Saddlers are top of League Two despite having the second-worst possession stats in the division. Pep Guardiola orders Manchester City to play out from the back because he’s got the most expensively-assembled defence in the Premier League.
And Enzo Maresca threatens to drop his goalkeepers if they launch clearances long-distance, but after Chelsea’s £1 billion trolley dash he can afford to preach patience. So let’s hear it for Walsall – only 43 per cent possession over the whole season, but who wants to nip out for a hot dog and come back to find your team still haven’t even made it over the halfway line?
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Tippy-tappy tiki-taka is fine for players who would look comfortable in Judy Garland’s red shoes from the Wizard of Oz, but for lower division players in hobnail boots, pussyfooting around in your own box is asking for trouble. Walsall’s home date with Grimsby on Saturday may not be as decorative as figure skating, but if you want pretty patterns, try that Laura Ashley catalogue on the coffee table. And that 43 per cent figure is nothing to be ashamed of when you are top of the league.
“It’s probably not an impressive stat if you are Pep,” laughed Sadler. “And it’s not something that I go looking for, or that we set out to do as a club. But we have a style and a way that we want to play, a system that suits our players.
“In certain games we have more of the ball, but in our division the pitches are not always conducive to playing out from the back. You can literally come unstuck. It’s about identity – we have been very settled in the way we want to play and I don’t care what the stats say.
“I want us to be a high-energy team that plays in the opposition half. Now we are a side with a clear identity. That has been my main focus.”
Sadler, 40, clocked up 574 appearances across all four divisions as an honest defender and he has just passed his century of games in his first managerial post. Everyone who drives from London to Manchester goes past the Bescot stadium, and normally the traffic thrombosis of the M6 allows you to get a good look at it, but these days the Saddlers are worth a pit-stop.
They have the oldest strike force in English football – 35-year-old centre forward Jamille Matt and ‘Uncle’ Albert Adomah, still giving full-backs a guided tour of the final third at 37 after 730 games for eight clubs, leading the line in Sadler’s 3-5-2 formation. “They say you can’t buy experience and they are incredible professionals,” said Sadler. “Burt most importantly, they are fantastic people who set the bar high for standards that everyone aspires to follow.
“Our captain, Donervon Daniels, does exactly the same. And yet we started the season with the youngest team in the division. Our game is based on athleticism and running hard – age doesn’t matter, our identity is built on our work-rate and those guys are still incredibly athletic.”
Sadler oversaw a club record nine consecutive wins either side of Christmas and, after a decade of drift since Walsall’s first-ever trip to Wembley in 2015 and missing out on promotion to the Championship by a single point the following year, they are on the move again – unlike that infernal traffic on the M6.
“We’re not looking down, we’re looking up,” said Sadler. “The club is in a much better place than it was and we’re in a fantastic position with 12 games to go, but this division is brutal and it’s relentless.
“At one time this was the longest-serving League One club, and for a generation of our fans it’s not been a fantastic period with much to shout about, so I’m proud that we have given them hope.”
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