Lets have a recap…

Nothing justifies some of the cr*p that has been spouted on this board during the course of the season.

The board was relatively quiet after both the United and Arsenal games. Had we received a thumping in either game would this have been the case?

Would it f’ck. I’d put good money on it being the same outpouring of insults, goading and wild hyperbole that we’ve seen in earlier months.

By the same token Standish some of the criticism of Bobby over the last 3 seasons has also been justifiable although i agree that alot of it hasn’t.
He’s made mistakes & alot of em at times in signings, tactics, formations, substiutions, team selections etc.. & as supporters its my personal opinion that we have a right to voice those criticisms as much as he & the team deserve praise for their recent form – I honestly believe though that at any other club in this division, for as much as people spout off on here & other message boards, that Martinez would have been hounded out of the club by the fans & in reality there has been very little by way of match day protesting or similar stuff.

Is the, at times (IMO), seemingly blind faith of the lightsiders now being repaid?? Possibly – performances, bar a january blip, have been steadily improving since December but I think its far too early to either start celebrating or for the “I told you so” posts to start to appear from said lightsiders for a couple of reasons:
1) Latics a far from safe yet. An away game at Fulham will be bloody hard as will a home game against a champions league chasing spot Newcastle. Regardless of recent results, if Latics get a point from those 2 games I will be happy leaving us on 35 & facing a Blackburn team away who may look garbage at the moment but who several weeks ago were looking vastly improved the way Latics are now. On top of that QPR have had some decent results recently & Bolton have won 3 of their last 4 so things could still get very tight down there
2) Last season our points per game tally from feb onwards was very impressive & that turn around led many to start believing the club would push on this season & if anything for the first 3-4 months of the season they looked worse than they had done before. is this improvement one of those surges a relegation threatened side has or is it more permanent than that? I hope its the latter & I believe the signs are far more encouraging this time but we’ve been here before

That said, in all my time of watching Latics in the top flight I’ve never seen them looking so strong in all departments, playing as much as a team & being tactically astute as they have done over the last 6 weeks or so.
Bobby & the players deserve all the praise coming their way recently & as a Latics fan I hope that we stay up & that this form continues into next season – Incidentally points per game since feb would currently have Latics fighting for a champions league spot next season but I just want somet comfortable with maybe a cup final chucked in.
That’s nto askign for too much is it!!! ;)

Hindsight is such a wonderful word ! I have to admit though, the first word that entered my head was smug !!
Did you seriously think that through that very bleak period there would be no disgruntled fans ? The irony now is that it is looking fairly likely that he WILL leave us at some juncture ( When DW packs in ?) so its not a loyal to the club and fans thing is it ! It would appear that if the rumours are correct that he was just seeing out a promise to the big man !! If he was to leave say within 18 months then where would that leave this grand scheme that I hasten to add has only just started to fall into place ?

What hindsight? I’ve been posting about the youth development since last season.

Of course Martinez will leave at some point. Short of Wigan becoming a top four side and/or being able to offer him a multi pound annual contract, he’s bound to leave.

He’s shown loyalty insomuch as he never even spoke to Aston Villa as he was committed to the club/Whelan and had not finished what he was putting into place. I’m sure it’s not loyalty to the fans as such as he was getting booed every other week throughout the season.

And as I have said on countless occasions, the grand scheme you are talking of is not merely ninety minutes on a football pitch. Yes, that bit is going well of late; the other aspects of it have been formulating for the past three years and when Martinez does go, there will be a legacy in place for the right replacement to come in and continue.

Edit: on second reading, was that post aimed at me Phil?[/quote]

NO !! ;)

Listen, I have been guilty of knee jerk reactions re RM and have admitted being wrong but there is nothing worse than people giving the ” I told you so ” and ” How fucking stupid do you look now ” etc etc !! The truth of the matter is we were poor for a large part of the season and RM was found to be quite stubborn re formations and sticking with certain players. I am more than happy with the ways things have panned out but lets not rest upon our laurels here as its not over yet !

1) I did say some of it was unjustified. Off the top of my head the reaction to the lack of signings in January – where he was accused of not trying to sign anybody when it was clear that he’d made numerous efforts to sign numerous players. I’m sure there are many other examples but even as a darksider I don’t think that criticism was well placed
2) The key word was “seemingly” ;) Many, including myself were aware of what Martinez was trying to bring about on the pitch. I remember our particular debate earlier this year as to whether having some locals in the youth & development squad was a sign of success. My reference to blind faith is that Bobby has said on numerous occasions that it is imperative to the future plans for the club for them to remain in this division. The blind faith comes in relation to the first team when he’s consistantly tried to jam square pegs in round holes, made shocking team selections & subsitutions, not learning from mistakes etc.. personally i couldn’t see based on that evidence that he could keep us up nor if he took us down that he would have the ability to bring us back up. It looked like blind faith coz he was doing more wrong than right
3) Until it continues into next season then it is a surge. Whether its been achieved by trying to play the same way or not. The players could have had a collective rocket up their backsides when relegation looked likely & all but a handful of em realised that they’d be stuck on vastly reduced contracts. IMO the improved performances & results have to be maintained for it not to be a surge as they’ve proved in the past in small patches that they are more than capable of producing good results
4) It certainly does contain many of the same players. Some of them who were getting slated seem to now be playing in a system to which they are far more suited (Caldwell). Others have been brought in from the cold like Maloney & McArthur (not that I’m saying they should have been brought in earlier as as Bobby has said maybe they weren’t ready). I also think the signing of Beausejour has been inspired & gives us real balance down both sides for the first time in years
5) I’m pretty certain that Bobby hasn;t taken heed of what’s been said on here coz for a start he’s still only playing 1 up front!! ;) But he undoubtedly saw his previous 4-5-1 system wasn’t working & went to 3 at the back. He also then saw that other players were more suited to playing his new system than others eg Malomey instead of Gomez. For someone who feels he didn’t learn from his mistakes in the past he quickly realised what his new system needed to make it work better & again he deserves praise for that

Surprised at you JR of all people. You moan all season about sticking together then come April when everyone begins to unite you go and post a thing like that. Bucket, stick and shit spring to mind.