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Pfft, excited. If we lose, we lose. We’ve still got Hull to come, right, RIGHT?!?!
In all seriousness – I’m terrified. If we lose to that shower, then we don’t deserve to be in the Premiership; and that, is what scares me.
Pics, or it didn’t happen.
It happened on my telly, mate[/quote]
Oh yeah, well there’s breasts abound on the internet but you don’t hear me shouting about it (!).
Cool story though.
Correct me if I’m wrong but ol’ Bobby has managed to shift (aleit some temporarily & 1 unintentionally) the following “dross” brought in by Bruce:
Cattermole, Edman, Kapo, De Ridder, Won-Hee Cho & King.
The only 3 other Bruce signings left that I can think of off the top of my head are 3 of our better players (N’Zogbia, Figueroa & Rodallega)We’ve loaned out players to small clubs, and like Vat said, will still be paying some portion of their wages (Watson, Kapo, de Ridder and Cho). I’m sure Martinez has a wage budget to work with, and therefore will have to get rid of a lot of deadwood to free up room within it. Koumas is still here on a full salary, as is Bouaouzan. In the first window, we couldn’t shift King because of his massive wages, something which I read (I may be wrong here) contributed to us not being in a position to sign Scott MacDonald.
Unfortunately Bobby has decided to populate his squad with the following “dross”:
Gomez, Scotland, Amaya, Sinclair & Thomas
And (IMO) he’s brought in no-one who has produced the goods on a consistant basis – McCarthy, Caldwell & Diame whilst looking better than the above 5 have either not been playing for us long enough or had their fair share of stinkers (or both)Some of those signings haven’t been brilliant, I admit. However, Martinez has admitted that he would rather have slowly introduced Gómez and Scotland to Premiership football but circumstances dictated that he couldn’t. Also, they performed excellently in the Championship (which contrary to what a lot would have you believe, isn’t a million miles away, in terms of quality, to the Premiership) and although something of a gamble, they both could quite easily have been excellent signings.
Sinclair has been decent – he was never going to set the world alight. We’re paying him next to nothing, and didn’t sign him for anything. He adds some depth to our squad which is already threadbare. Plus, he’s brought Rosie Webster to the DW. Top effort all round there.
Are we really labelling Thomas as a Martinez signing?
On the other hand, he has managed to persuade two of Britain’s (well, one’s ‘Irish’ apparently) top footballing prospects to come to Wigan. Both have been linked with moves to the Barcelonas and Liverpools of the world, but Martinez convinced them that Wigan was the right move for them. Would this have happened under any other regime?
Diamé has been fantastic this season (he was another scouted by Barcelona), and he’s here because of Martinez’ knowledge of Spanish football.
So, yeah, Amaya’s awful and some others haven’t quite paid off, but we now also have three fantastic young talents that have been brought in by Martinez (in just two transfer windows) forming the backbone of a fledgling Wigan side; in time, with a couple more of these ‘finds’, imagine the team he could build.
Not going down. Dont be stupidSoz.
I forgot that four point cushion was deceptively huge. Forgive my stupidity.
Before you can play your football you have to put the work in.What does this even mean?
Against Liverpool we had something to defend, and did so well.
Eh?
Kirkland makes the odd mistake, just like every goalkeeper does, but he’s one of the best keepers in the Premier League.
no, he isnt. not by a long way. he is great at reaction saves and 1 on 1’s but when it comes to corners or crosses he is more likely to be found on the floor or at behind a crowd of players. his positional play is terrible and he cant boss or marshall players anywhere near as well as filan could.
im 10 stone and 5ft 11 and would come of better than him if challenging him for a ball.[/quote]
You say what now?
How many balls does he flap at (criticisms aimed a lot of Premiership keepers, and a factor that is used by many to judge how ‘good’ a ‘keeper is)? Very few.
He doesn’t come for every corner because if he did, he’d be vacating the goal far too often. We have defenders in the box for a reason – so they can head it clear.
Terrible positional play? You’ve just said that he’s ‘great at reaction saves’, and without good positional play, he’d be in no situation to make them.
I mean, rather than constantly have Kirkland throwing the ball out to Bramble, Caldwell, etc, and them then passing 5 or 6 passes across the back 4, have a bit of variation. It’s too telegraphed. Fact is, we seem to do all these little passes, and it comes to nothing. Our main threat in N’Zogbia. As soon as the opponents suss that, we are knackered.From day one, we’ve said there’s no plan B. That’s still apparent. I just think Roberto’s game plan is too ‘pure’. Even Chelsea play direct sometimes. Get Rodallega getting behind the defenders, the way he was doing last season, and maybe Moreno flicking on. (Remember? the way Rodallega would ‘get around’ defenders with his pace?) Use N’Zogbia’s pace as well.
In the space of a year, we’ve got a squad of players that have gone from playing a direct style, looking for flick on’s, to get behind the back 4, to trying to play a deliberate build up from defence. No wonder we are struggling. It’s chalk and cheese.
I think that’s what we need to work on, a bit of variation, as well as our corners and set pieces that have been disappointing.
I see what you’re saying, and in essence, I agree with you.
However, at the minute we don’t really have the squad to play any other way – primarily because our centre halves can’t pass a ball and no sod up front can head it.
Similar criticisms were aimed at Arsenal not long ago – they didn’t change their footballing ‘ethos’ or tactical masterplan, simply added players that were capable of mixing it – Arshavin, Nasri and Bendtner for example.
Right now, this is all we’ve got. At the start of the season, Bramble and Scharner were lambasted for continuously attempting to play the ball out from the back; they weren’t capable. Nor was their anybody competent in the air enough to get on the end of such balls (something which is still true).
Even if we went to a flat, traditional 4-4-2, we still end up with the problem that we’ve only got one proper winger (discounting Sinclair) and two strikers and Scotland. He’s built a side to play 4-2-3-1 with players that pass it about, and we are one-dimensional in our approach, but for me anyway, it’s the only approach we’ve got at the minute.
Jaaskalainen does make a lot of very good saves, but by a similar measure, he’s very continental in regards to his tendency to punch and palm balls away.
Kirkland has been a very good goalkeeper for us over the past few seasons, and for me, he’s the most irreplaceable player that we have. He couldn’t have done much more with the goals yesterday. He was unfortunate with Elmanders.
Stojkovic flaps quite a lot, and not being able to speak the lingo properly surely detracts from his ability to organise a defence consisting of a thoroughbred Scot with similar linguistic incapabilities and Titus Bramble, whom in three years has shown no ability to communicate or even to possess the rudimentary requirements of verbal dialogue.