Marked for Aaron Pressley
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Sep 2026
Walsall bow out of the cup
Rotherham United go through and Walsall go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Daniel Kanu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Walsall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Milton Keynes Dons left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Walsall win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Salford City will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jake Hollman in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Walsall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The crowd has taken to Ronan Maher
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aaron Pressley. 1‑0 against Salford City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Aden Flint 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Aden Flint
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jake Hollman 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Alex Pattison
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Walsall are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market31 Aug 2026
Walsall have made Sam Hornby available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Walsall have gone and got theirs early.