By A Bloke
February 12 2005

At long last Saddlers have chalked up a victory on their travels. It would appear that Merson is learning the art of management. Hooraah! Paul Merson is learning. Last nights excellent result at Bristol City was earned through hard work and a change in formation. If you want to play open expansive football and you don’t have top quality players (which we don’t) then the goals against column will take a bit of a hammering (indeed it has).

Alternatively, if you are organised and hard working then it is possible to overcome a shortfall in quality. This has been seen in recent successful seasons under Chris Nicholl and more notably Ray Graydon.

Last night Merson decided to drop himself, pack his midfield and play Leitao up front on his own. This prevented City from dominating the game, destroying our full backs and scoring a hat full of goals.

With the midfield in control and springing forward to support Leitao there is always a chance that you can get a goal and make it as darn difficult as possible for your opponents to get back into the game.

Our previous successful promotion campaigns have been based on solid counter attacking play. It looks like the penny has finally dropped.

More of the same please Gaffer.