Fair Play ??

Having watched most of the games this season home and away, I can understand why some fans, including me, genuinely feel that we are actually unlucky to go down.

Apart from the odd games we have competed in every one and been in those games for the majority of the 90 mins.

Individual errors have cost us, its not that teams have battered us into submission they haven’t.
I would say we have bossed probably 75% of the 46 games we’ve played but ended up missing the chances we have created and other teams have punished us for the errors we’ve made.

Before anyone calls me deluded, I am as fair as anyone when having my post match chat, if teams have been better than us I say that.

Take a look at the injuries we have had to contend with, in particularly key positions including arguably our best striker, Will Grigg and for the run in his replacement Omar Bogle, two of our best midfielders in Powell and Gilbey, our best right back come wing back, Donovan Daniels, two left backs to put pressure on Warnock, Reece James and Andy Kellett, Captain Morgan for quite a few games, goal keepers galore whether you thought they were good enough or not, don’t forget losing Bogdan and Jussi lead to us getting that disaster from Stoke.

The sacking of Caldwell, which IMHO was a tad too early. As per the previous season in league one, it took him a while to sort out his best team and gel the players, it was ironic that “Caldwell’s team” beat Cardiff away days after he was sacked and that might have put his sacking on hold, who knows what might have happened.

The gamble taken when putting Joyce in charge back fired, it led to a shed full of loan signings and the squad changed shape again. OK that was Sharpy’s mistake and he realises that now, but it looked like a decent appointment at the time.

Can anyone honestly say that that having watched Latics all season that there was only one team in the championship that looked worse than us?

I know people say the league never lies and after 46 games we had the second least points of 23 teams, but taking everything into consideration I really think we did not deserve to go down.

If you think they did, fair enough that’s your opinion, but its certainly not down to playing united and Liverpool pre-season, these are games that;

a} generate welcomed income,
b} bring in a a lot of fans that may just get hooked into watching us more often.
c} give the players the opportunity to test themselves against top class players.

Nowt wrong with the above, to me its more about getting the players to gel, so get that right during pre-season, if we play Macclesfield lets put our first team out and not a team of kids.

Here’s to a great season in league Uno.

I make you absolutely bang on the money jr but I really believe the negative tactics have played a massive role. 22 games without scoring says volumes for the style of play. If you don’t score you don’t win.

I can fully understand where you are coming from JR. Apart from 1 or 2 games maybe i do not recall getting hammered by any team, & certainly, has no team worried me this season.

As you say, individual errors have cost us in games & as nuneaton says, 22 games without scoring is a concern.

I disagree in saying grigg is our best player. I personally do not think the championship is (& a few others) his level. If he stays he & bogle will run riot next season IMO.

The problem for me goes right back to the start of the season. Whatever happened behind the scenes to allow the likes of pearce, morsy, mccann et al to leave/go out on loan is mystifying. & caldwell is to blame for that. However, I do think his sacking was a tad too early & i believe he was turning it around, like he did in league 1. The appointment of joyce which i was looking forward to at the time with his promise of free flowing football, was one of THE biggest disasters this club has ever made. Barrow was on a no win situation since taking over.

I seriously hope mr sharpe (& jackson) have learned valuable lessons. I was expecting a mid to lower finish this season.

My other worry is for next season. If things are not going right at the very beginning i seriously hope supporters do not walk away & turn their backs on the club. I won’t. But you know how fickle some on here can be.

I’ll still renew if caldwell is re-instated. In a way, it is of no concern who the manager is/who the players are, this is still my club & i made a personsl promise to support it until the day i die.

I personally can’t see them asking caldwell again following his less than successful stint at chesterfield. Rosler! I’m not too sure. But i don’t think he would want to return if i’m being honest.

Have you forgot it was GC who got us out of league one, what makes you think he couldn’t do it again.

Having said that I don’t believe in bringing players or managers back to the club, so hope we do look elsewhere.

Sorry jr but I don’t think I could disagree any more with the comment that Latics were “unlucky to go down”

Latics got relegated because we deserved to go down, pure & simple.
We lacked any kind of cutting edge whatsoever because the management at the club decided that was an area they didn’t need to strengthen. Disastrous decision
They vast majority of players who were voluntarily released/sold/let out on loan were the right players to get rid of but the recruitment was diabolical with 1 or 2 exceptions.
The loan signings were appalling coupled with the “if fit must play” clauses that the club agreed to they were a recipe for disaster.

On the game side itself, true very few teams steamrolled us, but we were so easy to contain, they didn’t need to.
Injuries didn’t help but very few, if any, would have addressed the lack of cutting edge up front.
Latics were so one paced & one dimensional that it was painful to watch – even more so when Yanic was flogged.

We’re Latics the 2nd worst team in the division? Yes, clearly. And by some stretch.
To write the season off as unlucky negates the many, many mistakes that were made from the end of last season to the present day. Thankfully those in charge seem to have acknowledged mistakes were made but I hope they recognise them all (including the ones they made) & take steps to address them

Caldwell caused this disaster and shouldn’t be touched with a barge pole. It seemed to me like the minute we got promoted he went into meltdown. He didn’t believe in his own ability the players ability and that’s why wholesale changes were needlessly made. Yes Joyce was a total screw-up but the damage was already done A lot is being said about pre season games and again that points to Caldwell being intimidated by the championship that’s why he went negative . What is more disturbing is that the board sanctioned his insane decisions. We appear to have adopted this psyche of worrying about teams too much instead of letting them worry about us.

Exactly tilders its like he became the rabbit in the headlights. I don’t agree that the players were not good enough. Grigg has come in for terrible stick because of Caldwells change. I think he would have been ok had we carried on from the previous season. Burton didn’t have players as good as we did but have survived same as Barnsley but they have just been managed better.