Walsall's internationals: Hinderance or a boost?

Jonny Drury and George Bennett discuss Walsall's internationals on the latest episode of the Bescot Beat

Transcript

00:00I think it came at a really good time for Walsall. They had that 6-2 defeat at Fleetwood

00:08and they just had one more opportunity to prove that that was just a blip. Although

00:14they didn't win the game against Chesterfield, they put in a really good performance and

00:17just put that behind them. Then they had the opportunity to go into that international

00:22break, reset, and they've come back really strongly. The Grimms being Carlisle wins a

00:28goal with Stroud the other day. So I think the international break came at a good time

00:32for them. There is obviously the challenge of whether players like Liam Gordon especially

00:39can be overloaded. There's been times where he sort of returns to Essington on a Thursday

00:43and then he's playing away from home on a Saturday. So that's going to be physically

00:47challenging. But I mean, in the games that I've watched following his returns from internationals,

00:54it's not really looked like it's affected him a great deal. And I mean, the position

00:58that Walsall find themselves in at the minute with someone like Donovan Daniels and Brandon

01:02Connolly, who are really struggling for minutes with the form of the likes of Harry Williams

01:07and Taylor Allen, David Cagbury, and obviously Ryan Sturck and Connolly's slot, is it actually

01:13provides those players with opportunities to get minutes that they're actually not getting

01:17at Walsall? I mean, I'm pretty sure both Connolly and Daniels played back-to-back 90

01:22minutes for Montserrat over the international break. So, you know, it keeps them fresh for

01:28when potentially they're going to be called upon by Matt Sadler. So that's key. But yeah,

01:34there is then the caveat of midweek games, a congested fixture schedule later in the

01:41season, which we're also going to find challenging. But you know, at times last season, Walsall

01:46had that anyway. I mean, I think it was during their run in February and March where they

01:50had that five-match winning streak. There was the Morecambe game that was in between

01:54there. There was a midweek game against Accrington. So Walsall has shown in the past that, you

01:58know, when those games come thick and fast, they've actually had good spells of form.