Lets have a recap…

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

Tyldesley, we have reached one of those rare moments where we seem to be in agreement on most things.

But, to me though, it would still be a major achievement if one day we have Wigan lads playing for Wigan Athletic in the Premier League.

After coming through the rugby league biased Wigan schooling system – where football was seen largely a second class pursuit, the borough producing Premier League footballers would signal a coming of age, and prove that Wigan really was a football town.