By Mister Happy
February 6 2005

In a truly dreadful encounter Saddlers managed to bag a point. After the thrills and spills of Huddersfield this was a non event. That was not as exciting as the scoreline suggests. In fact, from a Saddlers perspective it was truly awful. After the thrill a minute high tempo match against Huddersfield we were served up a lethargic load of old cobblers.

The only change to last weeks winning side was Osborn replacing the injured kinsella. This was generally expected.

Walsall started the game in a rather peculiar manner. We were trying to keep possession of the ball. I wouldn’t normally mind this new philosophy if we were trying to do something with it. For the first 5 minutes the ball went from Wright to Emblen, across to Bennett and Aranalde and then so on and so forth. The Wrexham players simply stood in their own half in mild amusement as Walsall huffed and puffed going no where.

From very early on it was obvious that Walsall were not going to be able to pass their way through Wrexham’s 5 man midfield. Therefore, why did we persist?

After much to-ing and fro-ing from left to right we inevitably dropped the usual clanger and gifted the visitors a goal. A clever piece of play from Holt conned the ref into awarding a free kick against Emblen. The moving ball was then taken and Saddlers cleared their lines for a throw in. From this point onwards it then went pear shaped. With no immediate danger the defence (YET AGAIN) cleared to a visiting midfielder who was (YET AGAIN) given the freedom of Bescot to fire the ball home.

The ball fell to Ferguson who hit the ball speculatively from 25 yards. This rather hopeful effort drifted past Joe “the cat” Murphy to give the visitors a lead.

If we persist in making defensive clangers and clearing the ball to opposition players we will inevitably concede goals; especially with a bag of cement between the sticks. Bring back Petterson or whatever his name was.

Rather surprisingly Walsall then went down the other end and equalised. A lovely ball was played across the box for Wrack to control and expertly finish. That was about as good as it got for Walsall as Wrexham then went on to dominate the rest of the half. Wrexham’s extra players in the middle of the pitch swamped our three and Ugarte gave Aranalde a torrid time. Jones and Llewellyn were looking sharp and committed whilst our lot simply roamed around like grazing sheep (had to get that in somewhere).

Wrexham nearly took the lead after yet more appalling defending. A harmless cross from Ugarte had Bennett in a panic and he somehow contrived to shin the ball past his own post. This bloke is one of the opposition’s most dangerous players. He has gone from being a player of the year contender to ass of the year. He has an uncanny ability to score incredible own goals, gift opposition players the ball and has moments of madness.

Wrexham did finally take the lead after about 20 minutes and to be honest it was well deserved as they were looking much the better side. Ugarte skipped between Aranalde and Bennett (shock!) and released LLewellyn who finished expertly past the traffic cone in Saddlers goal.

Walsall continued to huff and puff and against the run of play equalised again. A cross by Wright was met at the near post by Leitao who nodded firmly past Foster.

Wrexham could have gone in front before half time when Jones headed over from a corner. It is quite incredible that the half time score was 2-2 given that there were no real clear cut chances to speak of.

At half time Surman was given his first outing in place of Taylor. Having been booked during the first half for persistent fouling it was only a matter of time before he got himself sent off.

Saddlers suddenly got into the groove and dominated proceedings. Well, for three and a half minutes at least. Surman took control of a quick throw in from Leitao and was brought down unceremoniously in the box for a cast iron penalty. The ref, for reasons known only to himself, decided to give Walsall a free kick outside the box which was duly wasted.

Saddlers continued to press and Merson produced one of his stunning through balls to release Leitao. With the goal at his mercy Leitao then lost the plot completely and passed it to the invisible man. What on earth was he doing?

By now Walsall were looking on top with Wright causing problems down the flanks. Unfortunately on too many occasions he simply ran into his opposite number and lost possession. Wrexham were a constant threat with that bloke Ugarte being a pest all afternoon and they had a couple of efforts that troubled the passing traffic on the M6.

By now Merson had disappeared as the visitors midfield took hold of the game. He was spending large parts of the game viewing the match from the touch line with the linesman who, incidently, was not half as tasty as the one last week.

As the game gradually petered out Walsall had a glorious chance to bag all three points (although it would have been undeserved). A small chip from Wright was headed on by Surman to Merson who incredibly, with an open goal, hooked over from 5 yards out.

And that, as they say, was that.

A draw was probably a fair result. With their commitment and organisation I don’t see Wrexham going down. One thing for sure though. We aren’t going up.