By Neil Ravenscroft
December 3 2002

Christmas is coming fast, so that can only mean one thing for Saddlers fans. Yes it's time for TheSaddlersFC November Player of the Month! Well, the first place to start must be to look at the results for November: -

Walsall 4 Stoke 2
Leicester 2 Walsall 0
Wimbledon 3 Walsall 2
Walsall 1 Gillingham 0
Portsmouth 3 Walsall 2

Two wins and three defeats, with 9 scored and 10 conceded does not look very good on paper, but it has to be admitted that two of those away games were against the top two, so, perhaps, the results are not as bad as they first seem.

Despite moves to strengthen the defence, with the acquisition of Ludo Pollet, that is still the major worry, with only one clean sheet in the period. Granted that there were some problems with the injury to Zigor and our inability to bring in a loan signing as cover, but I do not feel that the award can go to one of the defence this month.

In midfield there have been some good performances, with O'Connor, Wrack, Sonner and, of course, Corica all looking good at times, but I still have not seen enough consistency for me to give it to one of them.

I have been impressed by the improvement with Junior, in that his all round game is getting better, but he still needs to be able to last 90 minutes.

The fact that we have looked dangerous in every game in the last month (other than the aberration at Leicester) is mainly down to one player. Unselfish running off the ball, an eye for goal, good in the air, strong, flair and two good feet, the award this month goes to the man who is close to becoming the perfect centre forward at this level, our Portuguese Man Of Awe,

Jorge Leitao.

(Apologies for the terrible pun, but I did nick it from the Preston match report in The Sun, so blame them).