"Glimmers and snapshots" - Lee Grant's assessment of Walsall pre-season draw

New Walsall head coach Lee Grant says he saw “glimmers and snapshots” that he liked during their goalless draw at Leamington - but insists there is still plenty of room for improvement. Grant made his debut in the dugout as Saddlers head coach and named two different XIs in each half in Warwickshire. Walsall stretched Leamington’s trialist goalkeeper on a number of occasions and also had a goal from summer signing Andrew Dallas ruled out for offside. In the end, Walsall were unable to find the breakthrough and Grant hopes that they can begin to convert those chances into goals going forward. “If we create that many chances in a game then we want to score more goals. If we have that amount of control of the football, we want to hurt the opposition more and probably create more opportunities than we did,” Grant explained. “But two weeks into the work that we’ve been putting in front of the players, I’m really pleased that they’ve been applying the bits that we’ve talked about. “In each half, with two different XIs, we’ve seen glimmers and snapshots of things that I really like and plenty that we need to work on. “That’s to be expected.” Summer signings Jed Ward, Sven Sprangler and Dallas starred in the first half for Walsall, while Lewis Simper and Coventry City loanee Isaac Moore played in the second 45. New centre-back James Connolly was unable to feature due to a minor issue, but Elicha Ahui played his first Walsall game since joining the club in January 2025. When asked whether he has a rough number of signings in mind, Grant responded: No. But I think if you counted up trialists and young players from the academy today, it would tell you just by the sheer math that we’ve still got a way to go. “Work to do, but that’s normal. We’re not any different to any other club in that respect. “There’s a World Cup on, Premier League clubs holding on to young players and there’s a difficult market to operate in. “We have to keep working, keep being creative behind the scenes to get what we need in, which we are doing. “And hopefully by the time we roll around to Bristol City, we’re in a much better position with that.” No fewer than 10 academy players featured for the Saddlers - while two trialists also played. A goalkeeper replaced Jed Ward between the sticks in the second half and another trialist played the first 30 minutes at centre-back. But Grant was not willing to go on record regarding the trialists and remained tight-lipped on the mystery men. “No, absolutely not,” he replied.