Jamie Jellis 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.
The dugout4 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Alexander Bailey left the room before anybody could ask which.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Roman Dixon is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Kaide Gordon
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Alex Pattison
Successful dribbles: 28. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Joe Worrall and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Walsall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamie Jellis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Joe Worrall was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at Walsall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamie Jellis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Walsall lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Jamie Jellis was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Sam Proctor has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Walsall will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Josh Landers, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
7.82, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Joe Worrall was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
A point taken on 91 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.