I seriously can’t remember the last time we began the month of November with 29 points. At a guess I’d say it was the 87/88 promotion season but I can’t be sure. Respect goes to UR and the players because no one would have believed we could maintain form like this for so long. With two home games coming up and six points to be won who knows where in the table we will be next Saturday tea time.
Millwall were the visitors at Bescot today and in truth they were awful. They appeared to have little pattern, organisation or idea where the net was, so much so that a 3-0 home win really didn’t flatter us. I imagine that at various destinations last season we looked as lost as the Lions did today as we ambled our way through a series of clueless away defeats.
Those days appear to have gone however and as last Saturday showed the boys don’t have an appetite for defeats and, if necessary, park up the pretty stuff and mix it a bit. Today was one of those matches. Millwall are not a big, physical side in the Northampton mould but they do know how to break a game up and disrupt the oppositions flow. Hence, Walsall showed little in the way of flair and creativity and plenty of graft and determination.
Suspensions for Ada and Pingu meant starting places for Roper and Porter and both stepped into the breach well. Roper in particular had a fine game and if the sponsors had any heart they would have given him man of the match. His gangly frame regularly makes him look frighteningly uncomfortable and his passing generally lets him down too often for the supporters to take to him but he will make it as a pro. It might not be at Walsall but, as with Dean Smith, he will make it somewhere.
The first and probably most important goal came from a well worked corner (again) as Dean Keates crossed for Richard Green to head home at the near post. Greeny’s first goal for the Saddlers. The second came direct from a corner as Darren Wrack curled the ball on the wind over everyone and inside the far post. Both goals raised a lot of questions of the Millwall keeper but I’m not complaining.
The third in the second half followed a cracking and decisive save by Walker with debutante Walter Otta, or Tarka to his mates, crossing for Rammell to amend for two previous glaring misses with a neat finish.
We cruised home from there and in doing so avoided any bookings or injuries and climbed to fourth in the table.
A fine days work however was frustratingly sullied somewhat by the mess that is currently referring to itself as Bristol City FC. No manager, and seemingly no idea on how to cope with life in the first division the Robins were embarrassed 6 - 1 by you know who. Even David Connelly notched so they must be crap. Shame on you.