Players and manager

I take your point but I also think that the back 4 are getting horribly exposed by lack of midfield protection

diame and thomas are to much alike, both holding midfielders they operate to far away from the front man leaving massive gaps,the spanish ones reaction to this is to play scharner in front of them in the creative role,this is the same scharner who everybody(except martinez it seems)knows is not good enough to play there and should be playing where the inept boyce is playing,but the alternitive is gomez,god help us.

everybody can blame whoever they like for yesterday,but the buck has to stop with one person ,
i said on this board after watching his team and tactics during the pre-season v st mirren that we were in for a difficult season,and got cried down by all the ‘love martinez brigade’,and please dont give me that pretty to watch football c r a p,

some of the football played under bruce last season was the best i have ever seen a latics team play,power, pace and yes passing was at times sublime and we never got stuffed once unlike the blackpool,arsenal,prtsmouth,man u and now spurs games.
if you think this rubbish we are being served now ,30 side way passes then a long diagonal ball is good,god help us.

mark my words we are in a worse position now than what we were under chris hutchings 2 years ago,and whelan said he needed to act to preserve our premiership status,now we will see if his ambitions have changed(something else i have said on more than one occasion on this board and got cried down again)

Some of the football plyed under Bruce was sublime thats weird thowt it was boring mesel

The point is this, under Steve Bruce, we would never have been beaten by more than 5 goals. The reason for this is Bruce would have everybody behind the ball for damage limitaton. Roberto doesn’t seem to have a plan B when things are going defensivly wrong. He should have changed something at the back, maybe push Boyce out to the left and put Sharner at the back…i don’t know. A lack of a good defensive coach seems to be the problem here.

we play some good stuff and things need to settle. The reason our defence were quite good last season was Bruce made the defenders blast anything that came near them – Roberto is now asking for things to be controlled and passed. Our back 4 are not used to this and have not played like this before (in recent times anyway). I think we have good defenders but you cant say any one of them has pace. Out of all of the defenders, I would keep Fig and Bramble. I know that view isn’t everybody’s view but we need pace and someone who has some vision.

Diame and Thomas are very good players, but with the failings at the back and lack of creativity up front, they are having to do everything and mostly stay in their own half as other teams know we are light up front.

we need a creating midfielder and someone who can grab a ball and have a good go. I would like to see an Arteta type player supporting a good striker, I agree a Torres type player would be great but we ain’t going to find one. I can see that Scotland can put it about, but Scotlands weakness is his pace and also his ability to see an opportunity (like the one against Fulham, he shuld have continued running to tap in N’Zogbia’s parried shot)

9 – 1 is an embarresment, but they were mostly good goals. I think any team in the bottom half would have been done by more than 5 goals yesterday as Tottenham were absolutly rampent – but it happened to us instead. :(

That’s where they are supposed to play. This formation, favoured by Liverpool and Real Madrid amonsgt others, is about having two holders with the other midfielder (in our case, at the moment, Scharner) getting further forward and linking with the two wide midfielders and the lone striker.

So, in fact, you have pointed out that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. :D Now, obviously, they should get forward at times too and I think they have – I am not talking about Sunday here, I haven’t seen it yet.

Then again, if you saw plenty sublime passes last season then you and I must be watching different football entirely. ;) [/quote][/size][/color]

liverpool are in a bigger mess than us at the moment because of their inept manager, so thats no endorsment of that style of play,and real madrid may get away with it in spain ,but then again despite spending 200 million quid in the summer are not breaking any pots,most teams play with one holding midfielder,thomas and diame only tackle :lol: and dont create anything and DONT link up with either wide men or striker,leaving a massive gap which the opposition just push into and stiffle the rest of our play by pushing us back ,exactly what rednapp said in his post match interview on sky,
and as far as your other point i didnt say anything about sublime passing on its own,i said the displays of pace,power and yes passing was sublime at times,and i will quote just a few of the games that “last season you and I must be watching different football entirely”

west ham away 2-0 down after 20 mins and battered them for the rest of the game,chelsea home losing after 3 mins then again murdered them for 87 +and the loss away at liverpool 3-2 was the best performance i have ever seen by a wigan athletic side,we even came away from spurs with a 0-0 draw fealing cheated unlike yesterday, these are the ones i remember.

it wasnt perfect, but at times was as good as anything i saw from the top sides and we never got stuffed like we are doing REGULARLY now.

this manager,his formations and ideas,but more so his dogmatic commitment to playing how he believes without trying something different will see us relegated and make no bones about it whelan will sack him eventually next year despite what he says now,

this leads me to another point i have made in the past,

so i will ask again what are whelans future ambitions to wigan athletic ?
even though he again rants about edman or bruce’s signings on sky, he must shoulder much of the blame for this debacle.[/quote]

You picked 3 (away) games out of 18 months. Now, I’ll bow to your better memory because is mine is bobbins. All I will say is that I remember being thoroughly bored with the football throughout the Bruce era and I am too leathered at away games to recall the details.

And that’s another thing; I go to watch Wigan as a social event and like to see football played how I want to see it played which I accept is not the same view held by many others. I also accept that it might get us relegated but as I will be there sitting in the same seat if we are in the 2nd division again, it doesn’t matter too much to me.

Finally, I agree that Diame/Thomas are not exactly in the same league as, say, Mascherano/Alonso but seriously, do you expect us to compete with those kinds of teams? I am not saying that this tactic is foolproof, otherwise everybody would be doing it. My point was that Bobby is in good company choosing this tactic.

“My point was that Bobby is in good company choosing this tactic”

The problem with that theory being that whereas Real Madrid & Liverpool have the players to be able to play that system successfully in their respective top flights, Wigan Athletic quite clearly don’t
Bobby should be able to see that and adjust his tactics/systems/whatever accordingly. At the moment he either can’t see that or he can, is too stubborn to change it & thinks if he gets them to play that way for long enough then they’ll turn into great players at some point
I asked after the Pompey game how many times does he have to stick his hand in a fire before he realises it burns – I’d like to add this week that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear