Roberto Martinez said he needed Wigan Athletic to survive two years in the Premier League for his style of play and the players he needed to take effect.
To one he is a moaner, to another he is a realist and over the next 8 games we will find out whether the Roberto Martinez detractors are going to have their worst fears realised or will we get relegated.
Back when the prodigal son answered his call and returned to his spiritual home he professed that he would need two years to change not just the team, but the structure of the Club and the style in which we would play football.
He said that he would need 3 transfer windows in his first fans forum, January was the third and in a recent interview I did with Roberto, he stated that he was very happy with where he was and that he had the players he needed to see us safe.
He reiterated that apart from four or five games we had really played quite well and certainly hadn’t got the results that the performances deserved. We need to be realistic about the huge task he has undertaken at Latics, he needed to reduce the wage bill and also recruit quality footballers.
We now have one of the youngest squads in our history and I dare anybody to say that the team has not played like a mid to top half side recently and if we carry on like this who is to say we can’t stay up.
It might sound like I am name dropping, but when I was at a dinner with Paul Jewell recently, I put across the argument that professional footballers should perform whether there are 5,000 or 50,000 there.
He said I was talking out my arse and that I didn’t understand what the mind of a professional footballer was like. He went on to say that when you are playing in front of a packed home crowd the buzz and the adrenaline pump through players.
When they take to the pitch and hear the home crowd it goes through and lifts them so much you can’t put a price on it. So top all the stay away ‘fans’, you are making it harder for the team – feel good about yourselves?
Seven points separate us from tenth place, with 6 of our last 8 games against teams that fall in this realm with us. There are a few teams have a much worse time of it that us at the moment, and if we can get points out of our next two games then survival will look a lot more real.
There have been plenty vote with their feet this season as they profess their hatred for the ‘boring way we play football’, ‘Martinez the Clown’ and ‘I’m not watching again until he goes’. But what will happen if we get the required points to stay in the league?
To do so we’ll probably have to average 1.5 points a game, which would mean a 50% improvement on what we have gained so far this season. It would also mean that if we were to continue that into next season, we would quite easily finish in the top ten, which is exactly what the gaffer said he was aiming for in his third season.
Would these fans then suddenly feel a little bit stupid and come cap in hand to watch the boys again or would they be so used to watching in the pub that they more than likely will never watch us live again (unless of course we get to a Final or heaven forbid Europe).
There is of course the flip side, we don’t get the points tally needed and end up getting relegated to the Championship. Dave Whelan has already stated that we won’t get shut of Bobby, so when we set it on fire next season will the boo boys return to watch a winning team, or will they stick by their guns and stay away.
I have a really good idea for these people; get behind the football team you profess to support. You could well be seeing the end of our Premier League existence, but it could so easily be the start of something great, don’t you want to be a part of it either way?
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