THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I can't be confident on anything I have seen, so far this season. It's not convincing and the football is of a poor standard. The only people that change this are the management and the players. It's about having pride in your work and performing to the best of your capabilities. Fans want to see there team playing with pride and passion. We all have to lose sometimes, whether in life or sport, but there is a way of doing that. It's giving 100% and going down with a fight. If fans see that, there won't be to many complaints.

I say draw at best. I cant see Walsall scoring more than 1. But it is if we can score the 1 back.

I expect a win and nothing less.

We're at home, playing a bottom half side weaker than our previous two opponents. The trend would suggest we get all 3 points here, and after the last two games I expect a big response.

We played Northampton at home who are worse than Walsall. How did that go for us?

Exactly. It was below expectations, hence why its even more important we get results in games like this. We should have comfortably beaten Northampton.

We might have an excuse losing to the likes of Bradford, Blackburn, Pompy etc but there are no excuses to lose against Walsall at home when we battered them 4-1 only a few months ago.

RN stated he wants us to be challenging to win L1 this season....if we cannot beat a team like Walsall at home, then we will be nowhere near the play-offs even....

Every team wants to be challenging for the title. If you don't then there is something wrong with you. Some will not. However, Walsall is the least of my worries when we have already lost to Blackpool drew with Northampton and limped to a win against Gillingham.

In an ideal world, then yes of course. But I would have more respect for RN, or any manager, if he said something like "we wish to finish in the play-offs" - at least be honest, with a realistic expectations, and then we would all buy into it more.

Sound pessimistic ? Then what would you say if a Mark Hughes or Tony Pullis said "oh, we want to challenge for the Prem title this season" ? Get my point ?

And the thing is, because RN DID say he wants the title - not merely promotion - then he has set his own bar...and so a match at home to Walsall is a must win. No excuses. He has in effect shot himself in the foot by raising the bar so high. When most of us would have been content had he just said "aim for promotion"...as at very best, we are only a top 6 team...if that....

I think you take what managers say a bit too seriously.

I wish people would stop using the Prem as a comparison. It's league 1 anyone can beat anyone, the difference in budgets is no where near as great as the Premier League or Championship. Nearly every team in this league are aiming to win the title. Shrewsbury were tipped to go down.