How have Walsall bottled the League 2 title?

Walsall should be celebrating by now. The Saddlers were, at one point, 12 points clear at the top of League One, and spent four months at the summit, but last week they lost top spot after losing to Port Vale. So what went wrong?

First half of the season success

From August until January, Walsall were experiencing great success in England’s fourth tier. Their great form in the first half of the season included a run of nine consecutive wins, spanning all of December and the first half of January. This included wins against others at the top of the table like Port Vale and Doncaster Rovers. Throughout their first 27 league matches, they were scoring a lot of goals, thanks in part to striker Nathan Lowe.

The Nathan Lowe effect

Lowe signed for Walsall at the start of the season, on loan from Championship side Stoke City. The 19-year-old played 22 league matches for the Saddlers, scoring 15 goals. This was crucial for Walsall, but it would not last, as Lowe was recalled by Stoke in January. Since then, Lowe has gone on to make nine appearances for the Championship side but has not carried over his great goalscoring record from the West Midlands to Staffordshire. This left Walsall without their main goalscorer, and despite bringing in Levi Amantchi from Bromley, as well as Ethan Wheatley and Ellis Harrison on loan from Manchester United and Milton Keynes Dons respectively, they have not been able to replicate the amount of goals Lowe was bringing to their side.

The luck ran out

Now it is easy to look at the dip in form since January and assume Walsall are now playing terribly and everything is going wrong. But from the outside, it seems as though the luck may have just run out for Mat Sadler’s men. They are still playing with the intensity and passion they showed in the first half of the season, but they are not achieving anywhere near the same level of results. Since late January, Walsall have won just two matches, with the last of those coming in late February. Most of these results have been draws, with Sadler’s side only losing twice since early February. They just cannot seem to get over the line in the same way they would do previously, and part of this may be the lack of Nathan Lowe goals, but it seems as though they are just unlucky for the most part.

Promotion still likely

Let us look at this from a grounded point of view. Walsall still have a great chance to get promoted. They currently find themselves 3rd, which in League 2 is enough to get promoted automatically, and only Doncaster look particularly likely to take that spot from them, as they are two points behind with a game in hand. So if Walsall were to finish in the top three and get promoted, it would still be seen as a successful season, and they are still only a point off the top spot, so you cannot rule out the possibility of them winning the league title still, but with the poor form they have experienced in recent months, you would probably expect either Port Vale or Bradford City to be crowned champions come the end of the season.