Bobbyswigan,
I also was there last night and will continue to go but you are missing the point.
When whelan took over and we bought “quality” and came up through the leagues we were still unknown and money talks with players in lower divisions. Now we are in the prem and have been for a few years people know wigan and what we are all about as a club.
When we first got to the premier league we were still unknown and players coming to play for us were excited at the prospect of a new club with a romantic story of how they rose through the leagues and saw it as a chance to build something.
Fast forward four years and the crowds have dwindled since our first term, and players realise that the new club are just a team punching above there weight in the big league. Sad though it is, but it is a fact.
pskl,
It is not the fact that are crowds are small that does not atract players, it is the fact that are stadium has a capacity of 25000 or so and it isnt full each home game. If the stadium was 16000 seater and was full every game it would not be an issue. This is because it seems like the support is there and present but 9000 empty seats and 4000 away fans on tuesday evening doesn’t go towards attracting these “big signings” posters on here talk about.
I am not having a go at our crowds, I think they are good for a town of our size. But the point is that we will never attarct the kind of players that dreamers on here think about, we have always done an excellent job of buying talent from abroad and bringing them on. When big clubs come in for these players they immediately want to leave for bigger and better things and that is just how it is.
When we build a team and need a few players to take it to the next level a bigger club comes in and takes away are best players because the players heads are turned, and the MANAGER in charge decides to sell them. Dave whelan is not the reason we sold palacios, cattermole, heskey, valencia, ellington?(sorry had to throw that one in), roberts, bullard, baines, to name but a few. The manager in charge at the time these players were sold realised that bigger clubs had turned there heads and they were no longer wanting to play for Wigan.
Whelan is not the greatest of chairmen but he is english, from wigan and has a few quid. I prefer to have him in charge rather than a foreign muppet who is just using us as a toy.
I love our club but as my original post says I think we as fans should get real.
