WALSALL: What happened? Jamille Matt about the transition from 12 points to the third, but the promotion of League Two is still possible Football news

It is in mid-January and Walsall just defeated MK Dons 4-2 at home, shrugging the departure of the highest shooter Nathan Lowe to Parent Club Stoke to extend their lead at the top of the league two to 12 points. It is a question when not if they win the title.

Jamille Matt, a 35 -year -old Lowe strike, with 12 goals this season, was forced to injure in the next game against Bradford. Walsall lost one 3-0 and continued to win any of the following four. Now they are on running 10 without victory.

In fact, with just two wins at 17, Walsall, once refugeed leader in two league, placed the bottom, but one of the form tables in the last three months. Their leadership is gone. Now they are third and keep their place in automatic promotional points on the gate difference.

How did it happen? It’s more than loss Lowe, that’s certain. It is the story of teams tuning their approach against Walsall, lost trust, and perhaps even playing with fear – thinking about what might go wrong, rather than what could happen right.

Few of them are better than Matt to understand the psychology of what is happening in Walsall. He did not play in the football league until he was 23 years old, until then he had completed the title in the field of advisory psychology.

“It’s not as easy as you say that one thing has changed,” Matt says Sky Sports. “Momentum works in both ways. When it goes well, it’s a snowball effect. When is there another game?

“Trust can knock”

He adds: “The trust can knock. Before we had the little knocking, it was easier to shock it. Walsall just trying to go through.

“In football, you learn that even if your trust is low, you just push,” Matt explains. “You are still the same player whether your trust is low or high, so it’s under your control to change it. This is where you return to your foundations.

“When I remember the times when I had low confidence, I think,” Right, what can I control? “It works hard on training, make sure I’m preparing.

Maybe Walsall’s opponents changed their approach? “Maybe it is part of it. You are shot there. We should see it as a compliment. Teams are aware of how well we can be and try to cancel our threats. But if we play what is in their power, we are a handful of

“Lowy was a really good player. Along with that you look at our team and maybe it was quite settled before Nathan returned to Stoke.

“We still have such a great group of players, but we missed the others with injuries, just like George Hall, who was a big lady this season, and Jack Earring. Relatively few guys are coming back. We still believe we have enough in the building.

“In football it’s always a fine line. In a backward look, it’s whatever the best, always after you had the result. You should have done it or you were supposed to do it. At the moment I think it’s about your principles and what served you well.

“When we played this season on our strengths and everyone was on the front leg and everyone was on the same page with it, I think it is when we had our most positive results and the teams were unable to live with us.”

Experienced heads now need

Matt is a nice figure, old head in the dressing room. This, mixed with juvenile enthusiasm in Walsall, was considered a reason for success when things went well. Matt, like Albert Adomah and Donernon Daniels, could lead young people.

“They are boys who have been for a long time and played a lot of games, have gone through a lot. We are constantly leading these conversations. This is part of why the group is as close as it is. We can draw a line under the things and move forward.”

Now, however, as victory wins Walsall, there is a fear that it is not enough of this team at their main forehead. Did they get their feet? Only Bromley had fewer balls in the league two. The intensity needed from the ball to make this work is difficult.

Matt, who has played 46 games this season in all competitions, 39 from the beginning, insists that he is fully fit and ready to attack the remaining accessories. “I feel really good. There are times when I felt more than others during the season,” he says.

“A few months ago I had a little injury and came back before expected, but the knock-on effect is that they get a little caught with you. But I feel like I’m coming out on the other side and I feel good and rare to go to the last four games.”

When he spoke to Walsall Boss Mat Sadler last summer, before their amazing during, he revealed that his son was now in love with all Walsall things – and chose Matt in his English team. Does it help when you are a favorite player of a son manager?

“That’s the first time I have heard it to be honest,” he laughs. “But Gaffer was brilliant. He’s a big family man and that is important. In negative times they are there to pick us up and are also driving force when they are good times.”

Sadler under control? “I consider it ridiculous”

Saler, who naturally signed a new contract in January, is under growing control. Online fans forum even debate about merit that they will now fall in a desperate effort to change something – nothing – turn your wealth before it’s too late.

Matt is not impressed. “Listen, I can’t speak high enough about Gaffer. He was incredible, not just with me but with all the boys. It’s the way he can handle things, the calming presence he is.

“There were times after the game, and I think,” I don’t know what to say here “and Gaffer always finds the right words.

“If he is under some control, I consider it ridiculous, because the work he has done is the first manager … Again, it is a putting thing in the perspective. Being in the position we were this season, that’s what this club called about.”

A local boy with a promotional dream

Maybe Matt feel more than most others. The career that took him from Kidderminster to Forest Green via Fleetwood and Plymouth, Blackpool, Grimsby and Newport, brought him back to the beginning when the footballer was just a dream.

He went to school near the old training ground. “Sometimes we should have PE and Walsall players would also be training. I never had a chance to play Walsall growing up. Going back to Walsall was a chance to return home,” he says.

“I think there are times when you feel more than others. But it’s nice, because if it’s going well, you leave the news that they say,” Proud of you “, and if things don’t get well, you let the news say,” We’re all behind you “.”

That is why promotion of this season would feel different from the ones he had achieved before in his career, with Fleetwood and Forest Green. Because it’s Walsall. And given the mental resistance that the platoon will have to show whether to overcome the line.

“The only thing I wanted to achieve is to be promoted with Walsall. This one would be placed right up, because before the ball was kicked, I don’t think someone liked us very much to be honest except us.

“We want to do this for all involved, including supporters. We want to achieve something, finish it and win the promotion of hard work and stick together. We want to make sure that all the hard work we have inserted was for nothing.”

“We can still control another game”

The big challenge is now to move thinking. After the months when they were hunted, hunters are now. Many supporters seem to have lost hope and recently explains why. But one victory could still change everything. The price of promotion is still in sight.

“It is important to realize that when we all started playing football, it was the kind of moments for which we played football – to be in these positions,” Matt says. It is a kind of thinking that will be needed to stay at the moment.

“I was in situations where you are fighting the descent at this stage of the season.

“I think sometimes, because games come strong and fast, you can lose perspective. It’s just about how to focus now. What happened. We can’t influence what happened.

“But we can still control another game …”

Watch Walsall vs Harrogate this Good Friday at Sky Sports+; Kick-off 15:00