Not getting sniffy at all but the fact is Liverpool were poor when we beat them. Beat them we did but trying to balance that victory with an 8-0 hiding, like some people are, is pushing it a bit.
Agreed, there is no dressing up an 8-0 and a 9-1 defeat. The odd 5-0 reverse against Man U is ordinarily no disgrace but in a season that contained too many similar results it’s not good.
“So why is someone who told it as it would be getting all this grief?
3 managers acheived axactly the same, why are two lauded (sp?) and one slaughtered?”
I’ll also answer yours
a) They did not achieve “exactly the same”. All 3 managers who achieved “exactly the same” had totally different points, wins, draws, losses, goals for and goals against records. The only thing all 3 had in common was not getting relegated. As I said before I fail to see when comparing Bobby’s record from this season & bruce’s from last that they can be said to have achieved “exactly the same”
b) True Bobby said that this would be a transitional season where the focus would be on retaining our premier league spot so i can fully understand how you & many others can say that he achieved what he set out to do. What I would expect to see during a transitional phase for a team is an initial period where players were getting used to the system, followed by a balancing out period as they grew more accustomed to each other & the system of play followed by an improvement as the season wore on.
We didn’t get that – what we got was (IMO & quite clearly not yours) was crap at the start of the season, crap in the middle of the season & crap at the end of the season. After each precious victory people were on here & Bobby was in the press saying that this was the turning point & we’d push on from here & then we had another period where it was all back to square one
I can’t see any transition or any improvement at all & that is why I have been giving him grief
In fact the original question doesn’t even reflect what happened – Jewell got a hell of amount of grief on here & in the stands in the back end of the 06/07 season. Some idiot even lobbed his season ticket at him :oops: It was pretty much agreed by most on here that he’d taken latics as far as he could & that stepping down was a good thing all round
Also as results deteriorated in the back end of last season this board was full of people moaning about the crap football being dished up & when he left there were loads thankfull we didn’t have to watch that “hoofball rubbish” any more & still say it now
I’ve answered the question as to why I’m giving Bobby more grief than I did the other two god knows how many times in this thread & feels like banging my head against a brick wall.
Those are my reasons why “I” am giving him grief & those are the reasons why “I” didn’t give the other 2 as much grief. That you and ScholesControl disagree with those reasons is irrelevant you asked why those of us who are giving him stick are doing so & I’ve given you my reasons
That’s a fair point to be honest but I’d argue that they were freak occurrences in their seasons whereas it was symptomatic of ours both in terms of a heavy defeat & the manner of the collapse
I’d also compare the reactions of both Martin O’Neill & Tony Pulis who read the riot act to their squads as opposed to ours talking about it being “Chelsea’s day”, a “good learning curve”, saying he’d told his squad before the game that “they’d won their league” i.e. “job done lads”, saying “the result did not reflect what happened in the game”, talked of Chelsea “not being able to cope with what we were trying to do” & blaming the officials (again)
That’s a fair point to be honest but I’d argue that they were freak occurrences in their seasons whereas it was symptomatic of ours both in terms of a heavy defeat & the manner of the collapse
Oh, of course, I see.
Just like Liverpool were cack that’s is why we beat them. Liverpool have been cack a few tims we’ve played them and we still didn’t beat them.
Arsenal were having a bad day yes?
Chelsea, again at our place, freak result right?
I can see where you are coming from now.
Can I argue that we had about 20 off days this season?
The answer to the original question in my opinion is because Martinez is the only manager out of the three to take us backwards. Jewell took us from the 2nd division upto the prem.
Bruce took over us at the bottom and turned us into a mid table team who I believe would have been competing for European places this season had he been here.
Whereas Martinez has turned a mid table team to a team who struggles to finish 16th in the poorest premier league there has ever been. He has turned one of the best defenses outside the top 4 into the 2nd worst.
Why is Bruce’s last 6 months in charge being airbrushed from history?
We had a dreadful run of form, which if carried over a season would have seen us relegated.
As for Jewell, didn’t he leave the club after staying up on the last day of the season?
Isn’t it a touch unrealistic to expect any club to relentlessly push forward, sometimes you have to take a step backwards, particularly when there are major management and playing staff changes, the key was to enure that step backwards was not into the Championship.
The answer to the original question in my opinion is because Martinez is the only manager out of the three to take us backwards. Jewell took us from the 2nd division upto the prem.
Bruce took over us at the bottom and turned us into a mid table team who I believe would have been competing for European places this season had he been here.
Whereas Martinez has turned a mid table team to a team who struggles to finish 16th in the poorest premier league there has ever been. He has turned one of the best defenses outside the top 4 into the 2nd worst.
Bruce managed a whopping 17 points in the 2nd half of last season, relegation form by all accounts and subsequently left for a bigger club rather than continue working under the financial restrictions Latics have to operate
We then sold two of the remaining best players in Cattermole & Valencia in the summer for £20m of which I doubt even half was made re-available to Roberto Martinez, who has continued to manage under the financial restrictions which Bruce didn’t want to.
The target for the club is to avoid relegation each year, sorry if you don’t like that but it’s what Whelan said and he’s the chairman. Jewell achieved it, Bruce achieved it and Martinez achieved it.
If you seriously believe that you have a right to demand that WAFC should be in mid table, then you’d probably be better off supporting another mid table club
We can’t win in this league because as soon as we start to over-achieve and reach mid-table or get in the top half, our players get picked off by bigger clubs offering bigger wages. It’s nothing to do with who the manager is. It’s happened to Jewell (Bullard, Roberts), happened to Bruce (Palacios, Heskey, Valencia??) and will probably happen to Roberto (N’Zogbia, Rodallega)
Staying up is our target and it is an achievement, what a shame some of you can’t acknowledge it.
I think losing really creative and influential players like Valencia and Cattermole (alright, he was a bit of a liability at times but the amount of pressure he put on attackers was much needed at a team like ours) has been a factor…
…but can you really justify some of the purchases made at the start of the season? Scotland and Gomez being prime examples.
The positives we can take from this season are James McCarthy, Mohammed Diamé and Victor Moses, which I think will be a brilliant purchase over the coming seasons (even though we all know what will happen when he becomes the best attacker in the team!) N’Zogbia was arguably our best player, and I’m just hoping that all these ridiculous drubbings (not the horrors in the capital, I’m talking about the batterings by teams like Pompey and Bolton, who we should be beating) will make Martinez realise the importance of a solid defence and high pressure football.
If you seriously believe that you have a right to demand that WAFC should be in mid table, then you’d probably be better off supporting another mid table club
So your biggest aspiration is survival? Maybe you’d be better off supporting someone else? Do you think it’s ok to trade off five tonkings for a victory over a top four club?
On the subject of top four clubs, if we hadn’t got our three ‘bonus’ wins, we’d have 27 points. Throw in the arguable Villa away bonus win and it would be 24.
Maybe that goes some way to explaining the difference?
So your biggest aspiration is survival? Maybe you’d be better off supporting someone else? Do you think it’s ok to trade off five tonkings for a victory over a top four club?
No I aspire to see us winning the Premier League title, or failing that a nice run in the top half but the difference between me and you is that I understand that it is very unlikely to happen and anything finishing above the bottom three must be considered a success
We have the lowest crowds, one of the lowest wage bills, £60m in debt, and running up massive losses year on year, which can only be prevented by selling players. We have no comparative history at this level – people comparing us to the likes of Blackburn and Bolton is even laughable they were a top flight club 120 years ago, they are bigger towns who have won major honours and have no rugby team competing for their money!
When we first came up to the Premier League we expected to get tonked every week, the only thing that has changed in the above is that we are even more in debt and many of our fans have turned into the same Bertie Big times who exist at every other Premier League club. As I said at the beginning Roberto Martinez has achieved exactly what Jewell & Bruce did, to answer my own question when I started this thread – the difference is that the expectations of fans like you have changed and what was good enough under Jewell is apparently not good enough under Martinez
I’ll be supporting us whatever division we are in pal, just like I always have. As the very sage Old Git put it, every year Little Wigan exist in this division they thumb their noses at the big boys. Long may it continue!
No I aspire to see us winning the Premier League title, or failing that a nice run in the top half but the difference between me and you is that I understand that it is very unlikely to happen and anything finishing above the bottom three must be considered a success
We have the lowest crowds, one of the lowest wage bills, £60m in debt, and running up massive losses year on year, which can only be prevented by selling players. We have no comparative history at this level – people comparing us to the likes of Blackburn and Bolton is even laughable they were a top flight club 120 years ago, they are bigger towns who have won major honours and have no rugby team competing for their money!
When we first came up to the Premier League we expected to get tonked every week, the only thing that has changed in the above is that we are even more in debt and many of our fans have turned into the same Bertie Big times who exist at every other Premier League club. As I said at the beginning Roberto Martinez has achieved exactly what Jewell & Bruce did, to answer my own question when I started this thread – the difference is that the expectations of fans like you have changed and what was good enough under Jewell is apparently not good enough under Martinez
I’ll be supporting us whatever division we are in pal, just like I always have. As the very sage Old Git put it, every year Little Wigan exist in this division they thumb their noses at the big boys. Long may it continue!
I think you’ll find there’s not much difference in our expectation and aspiration. If you don’t turn up at the first game of the season thinking ‘this is gonna be our year’, it’s time to pack up.
I am as thankful as anyone that we are where we are and I often remind myself of that. If someone had said to me thirty five years ago that thirty five years in the future, WAFC would be involved in a game that could decide where the Division 1 (Prem) title would be going, I would have looked at them like they were strange.
We should be thankful we’ve got a club in the first place, after all that’s happened but the thing is we’ve moved on from that, we’re in the top flight and, like you say, long may that continue. We should be starting each campaign that little bit stronger, wiser and tougher. Unfortunately, we’ll be starting the next one in a more vulnerable state than any other, barring some miracle close season trading. I put much of that down to the current manager.
I think that one of the straws that broke the camel’s back for me was him playing Stojkovic a second time. Petty it may seem but how anyone in pro football management could take him into their squad, let alone play him in a league fixture, is beyond me. Speaks volumes, as far as I’m concerned. To be fair, Jewell came near with Aghahowa but fortunately for him, it wasn’t quite as calamitous.
Whoever’s in charge, I’ll be there next season. We’re probably going to start it as hot favourites to go down rather than just favourites.
He never promised a thing but losing 9-1, 8-0, 5-0 (twice), 4-0 (thrice), 4-1 to Blackpool, having a League 2 side knock us out of the cup is something beyond a transitional period/season. It’s a decline.
Those results far outweigh wins over Chelsea (superb), Arsenal (10 minutes of magic) and (a very poor) Liverpool.
He’ll be in charge next season and all proper and decent fans will be behind him and the team but anyone who thinks he’s genuinely achieved something this season is in some sort of denial.
we got knocked out of cup under jewell by a non league side,and bob as achieved something he has kept us in the premier leage in his 1st season in charge of a premier league side which will make him a better manager for next season.