George Bennett and Jonny Drury discuss Walsall's Brandon Comley injury blow.
Comley is set for a period in the sidelines after picking up an injury in the recent pre-season clash with Aston Villa.
George looks at who will fill the void in Comley's absence, and whether Walsall could dip back into the market for another midfielder.
Comley is set for a period in the sidelines after picking up an injury in the recent pre-season clash with Aston Villa.
George looks at who will fill the void in Comley's absence, and whether Walsall could dip back into the market for another midfielder.
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00:00What's all the delta, George? Some sort of bad news in one of the first pre-season games.
00:13Brandon Conley is going to be out for six to eight weeks with a leg injury. No-one wants
00:19to get injured in pre-season. They certainly don't want to be out for up to two months.
00:23And I suppose for Matt Sadler, it's one of his sort of key charges, his key men from
00:27last season, who's going to be missing for quite a considerable amount of time really
00:33early on in the campaign. How big of a blow is it and how do you see things moving forward
00:40now? Who is maybe the natural successor or replacement in that position? And do you think
00:46Morse will maybe go into the transfer market for another midfielder?
00:52I spoke to Matt Sadler previously about the midfield options, which is something he said
00:57he was happy with. That was obviously before the injury to Conley. They are relatively
01:06solid across midfield and I think that holding slot is something that Ryan Sturt will be
01:13tasked with filling the void with. He did it against Swindon towards the end of last
01:20season, came in when Conley was suspended and produced a really good performance. He's
01:26someone who's proven reliable. So I think Ryan Sturt will now have the opportunity to
01:30step up and possibly try to claim himself, break into that starting line-up and make
01:36it difficult for Conley to come and get back in when he is back from injury. But it's still
01:41a blow. I mean, 38 appearances for Conley last season. He started the previous campaign
01:47with an injury and came back into the side around October and he was an ever-present
01:53from there. In that number six role, he was a real sort of guiding force. He would sit
01:59back in when the overlapping centre-backs would go forward and just orchestrate the
02:06play ultimately. An unsung hero and it was no surprise when he was voted Player's Player
02:10of the Year because it's clearly a role that his teammates were massively grateful of.
02:16So a massive miss but a good opportunity now for Ryan Sturt to step up and I wouldn't
02:20anticipate Matt Sadler to kind of dip into the market with the fact that by mid-September
02:26you would really be expecting Brandon Conley idealistically to be back in the frame.