Just a few short weeks after confidently forecasting promotion, Walsall player-manager Paul Merson must now accept that he is fighting another relegation battle following this defeat. To ignore the danger would be folly. Results at Bescot Stadium had been easing the pressure on the rookie boss, but the first home defeat of the season plunged the Saddlers into the bottom four and sent shock waves through the club. It was not only the result, but the manner of the failure that sent remarkably patient supporters home fearing the worst. Walsall were awful, and unless there is a dramatic change in performances by key players and the team as a whole, the spectre of League Two football next season will continue to haunt them. Merson has gambled on young players with limited success, but it is obvious that he now needs his main men in the line-up with orders to start producing, now! Brentford were nothing special. They hadnt won on their travels before this match and yet are fourth in the table. Mersons inexperience as a manager is showing. He left himself out of the squad completely, yet surely he would have been a more-thanuseful substitute to bring on late in the game. Another slow start handed the initiative immediately to the grateful Londoners who were allowed to dictate the proceedings without much sweat, and a John Salako penalty after Darren Wracks trip on Isaiah Rankin eventually proved enough to clinch the points. Walsall again lacked drive in midfield, so much so that a player of Mark Kinsellas pedigree, who was skipper for the day, was eventually taken off in the second half and replaced by a raw, teenage striker, Taiwo Atieno. What encouragement, if any, could be taken from the game? Well, Ian Roper and young Julian Bennett were strong centre-backs while Mark Wright looks to have made a permanent claim to the problem right-back spot. So what has been a notoriously leaky defence has now conceded only three goals in the last three matches, compared with five in the previous two. Unfortunately the Saddlers, who were scoring for fun at the start of the season, havent hit the target in the last two games. | 
