Neither Black or White

Although have regularly read topics on this website (not others) haven’t posted for some while and here’s why. Whilst there is nothing new with honest debate and football creates more than enough controversy, what was emerging was labelling, anything deemed by some as negative was called the Darkside I dont think the other side were given a proper name, as some people labelled Darkside may well be offended by that term, in the interest of fairness lets call the others the Ultra or Lilywhites.

On recent reading the divisions seem even wider it’s as if it’s a personal slanging match, with neither side conceeding that the other has a valid point to make. I’ve never found life to be all black and white but more often to be differing shades of grey, none more so than Wigan Athletic Fc. My dad first took me to Springfield park when I was 8 or 9 and I’m still watching at 55. Am I happy (i’ll get to that soon)

1. Always the big issue Whelan
Big Plus side. Has bankrolled us into the Premiership
and stuck with us.

Downsides
A. Regularly interferes with management, likes yes men in the job who do his bidding
B. Loves to be quoted in the press (usually has a negative impact for the club)
C. We all have very little knowledge of how the club is doing financially, a couple of years ago remember hearing he had got the club debt down to 15 million recently hear that he has written off 40 million which do you believe, one thing is for certain no one would deny owning the club hasn’t harmed his sport or leisure business in the least.

[/u]my conclusion definitely a grey area with neither the positive or the negative owning the rights Whelan deserves respect but not total cap in hand allegiance, by the fee paying customer who has every right to complain if not happy.

Roberto Martinez

plusses
1.I believe he is loyal and has a genuine love of the club. I liked him as a player and genuinely want him to succeed.

2. He is very loyal to his players and has given the majority the chance to show what they can do.

3.Since he took over we have managed to beat most of the top sides, however the downside is failing to beat the poorer teams.

Negatives
1. When his total football quite regularly means that the back four and goalkeeper have more possession of the ball than the midfield players e.g Newcastle and Fulham at home.

2. At times his naivety and lack of awareness. a good example for me was the man city home game on a wet and difficult pitch the back four constantly passing the ball amongst themselves with player like Tevez lurking, we had a few warnings before the inevitable happened. For me his failure to bring off an injured and clearly struggling Hendry Thomas after Villas 1st goal on tuesday was another.

3. For me Bobbys biggest fault has been his 4-5-1 crusade, it might work fine for quick and skilfull players of Barcelona, but for our slow players such as Gomez, Watson and the oft clueless Hendry Thomas it’s a world away. I saw and heard an interview with Sam Alardyce the other day (No am not pushing for him) he was asked what you do when you go to a new club his answer was along the lines of, Assessing players strengths and weaknesses before picking the formation that suits the team best, and then changing the formation depending upon the opposition. To me Bobby has the reverse psychology of that, he came with the 4-5-1 and has done everything in his power to make it work and very rarely changes it. To me this makes the job of his opposing manager easier.

4. All the managerial qualifications in the world dont make up for 2 wins 6 draws and 12 goals scored in 13 home games being acceptable. After a good first half performance on tuesday all the fans gave a positive clapping to the team for their efforts. The fans in the east side only reitterated what many others in the west were thinking (me included) football managers are well paid for their work it does not give ex playing icons the right to be above criticism from the paying public, regardless of whether you consider “You dont know what you are doing” to be right or wrong.

5. His failure to accept responsibility when he not the team gets it wrong.

My conclusion
Whelan has said that Martinez is staying and I respect its his decision to make. If Martinez did go I dont believe Whelan would make any more funds available to a new manager and in those circumstances would be extremely difficult for anybody coming in. I would therefore stick with our current manager, at the end of the season he will either take the plaudits for keeping us up, or the credit for taking us down.