The Walsall Chronicle
Player ratings22 Jan 2029
Age has not caught Lyndon Dykes yet — 8.44
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.44 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Transfer targets22 Jan 2029
Anthony Butler turns down Walsall
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Chelsea keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad22 Jan 2029
A falling-out at Walsall
Louie Barry and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match20 Jan 2029
Walsall find a way past Colchester United
Colchester United made Walsall work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Transfer targets22 Jan 2029
Tottenham tell Walsall: Farren Doran is not for sale
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Defences have started doubling up on Louie Barry
10 goals and a season average of 7.32 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings22 Jan 2029
Ninety minutes of Louie Barry at his very best
Marked 8.34. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Walsall.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Roman Dixon falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Taylor Arnett stays put
“The easiest signature of my career.” Taylor Arnett and Walsall agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
- Market Walsall sign Max Pajonk, one for the future
- The dugout A satisfied Nicholas Dixon
- The dugout Harrison Burke gets it from the manager