Megson's thoughts after Walsall

12 August 2001

The following is a transcript of the interview between Tim Beech of BBC WM and Albion manager Gary Megson, carried out after the 2-1 defeat at Walsall. Thanks to Chris Wright for his sterling efforts in transcribing it:

Gary, it was the same old story wasn't it? You had a lot of chances, it was a game you could have won but defensively the 2 goals, particularly the second one, were nightmares weren't they?

"Yeah. Erm, really you can do your own interview or you can ask all our supporters, you can ask everybody here today. You can't succeed at anything if you can't do the basics right. You know, if you're an electrician and you can't change a plug you've got a problem. We are a football team and, at the moment, defending set pieces we look poor - there's no other word for it. I wouldn't mind if all I did was just throw them out there and let them do it themselves, but we've sat down and nearly enough for all week we've been banging on about the fact. There won't have been another manager I don't think who can go back to last year and say that you let 15 goals in from set pieces. You didn't get to the play-off final because of set pieces. You only scored 3 yourself because of set pieces. Now if I'd have been doing it the same way all the way through I'd take a lot more responsibility, but I've tried putting 2 on the post, I've tried leaving 2 up the front, I've tried zonal marking, I've tried leaving 1 spare, I've tried going man for man all over the show, but the bottom line is, when it gets thrown in we don't have enough people who are brave enough to get there and do the things that Barras and Tillson have done today. With all due respect to those 2, their biggest strength is they're honest, they get up and they head the ball out. If they didn't do, Walsall would struggle like we've done today."

You can bring them in for extra training, you're talking about doing that and bringing them in on their day off but, in the end, you've done all of that so many, many times haven't you....

"Yep"

....doesn't it just point to the fact that the personnel just isn't right? You've got to change things round?

"Yes."

I mean that's the top and bottom of it, surely. You've seen it so many times?

"Of course it is, but the personnel we've got there at the moment, that's what we've got, and we cannot progress, we can't go forward, we can't achieve the ambitions for the club if we can't defend set pieces. Whether it's the way we do it or whether it's the personnel that we do it with, I've got my own views on that and we'll be trying to sort it out. Bringing them in on their day off to do set pieces was meant as a threat so that they would defend a lot better because they would want the day off, but it didn't look like that because we even got away with it in the first half - we let them hit the post with exactly the same free-kick. We got a wake-up call and we didn't take it and it's particularly galling because, when that went in [our equaliser], I felt there were only gonna be 2 results not 3, either it would be a draw or we would go on and win it, because I felt Walsall weren't in it anymore. We were passing the ball about, we were creating opportunities and looked fine. We didn't look as if we had a problem, the crowd had gone quiet, they weren't in it anymore and then, once it gets to 2-1, it's no longer acceptable to us just to pass the ball about. We start then playing a little bit of alehouse football and we're not geared to it. But, you get forced into that kind of football when you're losing."

On the plus side though, Scott Dobie put himself about very well today, didn't he? He made himself available, he probably had more shots at goal than anybody else on the field I would say.

"Yeah, Scott was terrific. We've been delighted with him since we took him for £150 grand from Carlisle...."

Because he's a quiet lad, isn't he, off the field?

".....He is and he was very nervous but we said to him not to read things into the fact that he was playing. He's done enough in pre-season to suggest that he should be in there. If Lee had of still been here and if Jason had of been available then that would have given us a problem but, you saw today, that was his first game in the First Division, he's won a lot of balls in the air against 2 big centre-halves, he's shown great pace, he's got a lot of shots in there and he'll come on and he'll get better. I feel more disappointed for him than anybody else that he's made his First Division debut, played terrifically well and we've lost."

Bearing in mind you defended so badly on the 2 goals, so you'd have had to score 3 to win the game, would you have had a better chance to do that if Hughes and Roberts had been available?

"I don't know. They're both quality players. Jason will be available soon, but even Jason's not going to head too many balls out of there. Today, a lot of other football clubs would have won that game 1-0. The problem we've got is that we've got a great deal going for us and sometimes it forces clubs to play a certain way against us in as much as they panic, they thrash it down the field and, unfortunately at the moment, what we've got is that we can't deal with that. We deal OK with the teams that pass it intricately and look to probe a little bit but, last year, it doesn't lie and, I'm sure this won't come as any great surprise to you, Walsall beat us twice the year before last. Last year, the teams that beat us, Grimsby were the only team to beat us twice. Norwich beat us. QPR beat us. All teams like that beat us and, I'm not being disrespectful, they're playing a certain way."

Previous Stories:

  10 August 2001:  Megson: No panick buying

  10 August 2001:  Moore Mystery

  09 August 2001:  Hughes: It was time to move on

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