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I don’t know if you were replying to my post Sammy but I’ll reply to yours anyway coz i think you missed one of the points I was making with regards to the Jan 09 sell off
I know that Palacios would have needed to be sold in the summer anyway in order to keep the club going & fund squad development. I also know that Heskey would have gone for nowt in the summer but unless anyone can provide proof that the club had the bankers knocking on the door demanding their cash, then there was no need to sell those players when they did
The club was 7th at the time, playing really well & in with a shout of qualifying for Europe. Why sell those players (& give Valencia the choice to go too) in the middle of the season? The club should always aim to finish as high as it can whether that be 7th or 17th. Palacios could have been sold in the summer anyway as you state & if his form had continued it may well have been for more. Heskey would have gone for nowt but the prize money lost caused by the slump in form & the drop in places equated to roughly what the club got for him from Villa anyway.
It also ultimately cost us our manager several months down the line & Whelan’s comments that “we’re safe now, so its job done & build for next season” lost us a chunk of support.
However unrealistic the dream of competing in the top half of the table was it was still the dream of many & as Captain Sensible once said “if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true”!!!!!!All that said it is quite clear how Latics have to operate as a club & my initial post was intended to say that expecting us to operate like Fulham & Bolton isn’t possible
My response was in part to your post and to the general theme of the thread which is about people’s expectations.
I think the only player who could arguably not have been sold was Heskey. Maybe the bankers weren’t knocking on the door but I don’t think that was the issue. It was already common knowledge that Valencia was off to United at the end of the season and nothing was going to change that whatever position we finished in the league. Palacios only went when the offer from Spurs became too lucrative to turn down, especially for him (it’s not unreasonable to speculate that he trebled his salary).
I believe it was a watershed moment for the club; a realisation that despite being in the top half of the table it was still unable to hold on to its better players.The dream is still being in the Premiership.
The dismantling of Bruce’s team still rankles with many supporters but it also came as a stark reality check to those, well me at least, who thought we could successfully compete with even the mid-table teams in this league.
As far as Palacios was concerned – and I’ll stand corrected here – I believe the club weren’t about to sell him even though a decent offer had been made by Spurs. It was only when Man City came into the frame with an offer which forced Spurs to come back with an even better one – an offer that Whelan and the player couldn’t refuse – that he was eventually sold. Of course the club at the time weren’t in any immediate danger of being relegated, unlike last season and the situation with N’Zogbia when he wasn’t sold, so it was probably considered good business at the time.
The squad Bruce had was the best ever in the Prem but to think we could have kept that squad together is pure fantasy. Heskey and Valencia would have been off in the summer anyway and most likely Palacios too. And it wasn’t as if the mid-table position it provided was making much difference to the attendances to justify the risk of further financial outlay necessary to build on that. If a club like Arsenal can’t keep hold of its best players who want to move on to bigger and better things what chance do we have.
When Bruce left it signalled a change of policy by Whelan who decided he was either unable or unwilling to bankroll the club to the extent previously. So Martinez was brought in and the process of offloading the higher earners began together with restructuring of the club by placing more emphasis on youth development and by taking a chance on non-established players.
I measure the success of Wigan Athletic by its ability to remain in the Premiership, which incredibly it has done for seven seasons now. By doing so it gives its fans the chance to watch at first hand some of the best teams and best players in the world at an affordable price. We may complain about the absurdity of it all but when it’s gone it will most likely be forever. Embrace it while you can.
It does baffle me that any Wiganer can want something other than success for any team/sport/association etc hailing from the town.
I might not follow the sport, but I sure as hell would rather them win and bring more recognition to our now globally know town.
Its way down my list of “things I’d like to happen on Saturday” but I don’t like Wigan RL & I hope that Leeds win
All this “a wiganer should want a Wigan team to do well” stuff baffles me just as much as the “all English people should support all English football clubs in Europe”
Now over my 36 years on this earth I have grown to despise Man City with a passion – my personal experiences over this time will not be put to one side merely coz they happen to be playing a team from a different country & who I have no gripe with whatsoever
Same with the rugby lot, although my dislike for them does not come anywhere near that of City, or crewe, or bolton, or mansfield or any of a number of football teams. I’m not gonna drop my dislike of them for 80 minutes just coz they happen to be playing a team from another town
My loyalties are dictated by things other than what piece of land I happened to be born on &/or now live in
That is why some people will not want certain english teams to do well in europe or why they’ll be wanting a leeds victory on Saturday – well in my opinion anyroad[/quote]
Mansfield????I see you have not managed to offer up any radical new ideas on how differently the club should be run to achieve whatever it is you think the club should be achieving. :think:
There you go Hindley, I’ve posted this again as a reminder.
We have been in the promised land for 7 seasons and perhaps foolishly I thought we would be quite established by now. And by that I don’t think Europe or even top 10 but perhaps not just avoiding relegation every year. I know small crowds :teasing-blah: :teasing-blah: but we should be in a better position than every team coming up. And we sell our best players as soon as an offer comes in and in most cases don’t replace them.
Even if that is right way to run my football club it still fooks me off and gets me frustrated.
I’ll put the same question to you that I put to Bicky.
What would you do differently?If you can’t offer a credible alternative and the way the club is run “fooks you off and gets you frustrated”, then I suggest you support someone else or stop watching football altogether.
Oh, and by using clichés such as “the promised land” makes me take you even less seriously.[/quote]
I don’t give a flyer wether you take me seriously or not and to suggest I support someone else just show’s what you know about football.[/quote]
I see you have not managed to offer up any radical new ideas on how differently the club should be run to achieve whatever it is you think the club should be achieving. :think:So important I posted twice…!
We have been in the promised land for 7 seasons and perhaps foolishly I thought we would be quite established by now. And by that I don’t think Europe or even top 10 but perhaps not just avoiding relegation every year. I know small crowds :teasing-blah: :teasing-blah: but we should be in a better position than every team coming up. And we sell our best players as soon as an offer comes in and in most cases don’t replace them.
Even if that is right way to run my football club it still fooks me off and gets me frustrated.
I’ll put the same question to you that I put to Bicky.
What would you do differently?If you can’t offer a credible alternative and the way the club is run “fooks you off and gets you frustrated”, then I suggest you support someone else or stop watching football altogether.
Oh, and by using clichés such as “the promised land” makes me take you even less seriously.[/quote]
I don’t give a flyer wether you take me seriously or not and to suggest I support someone else just show’s what you know about football.[/quote]
I see you have not managed to offer up any radical new ideas on how differently the club should be run to achieve whatever it is you think the club should be achieving. :think:We have been in the promised land for 7 seasons and perhaps foolishly I thought we would be quite established by now. And by that I don’t think Europe or even top 10 but perhaps not just avoiding relegation every year. I know small crowds :teasing-blah: :teasing-blah: but we should be in a better position than every team coming up. And we sell our best players as soon as an offer comes in and in most cases don’t replace them.Even if that is right way to run my football club it still fooks me off and gets me frustrated.
I’ll put the same question to you that I put to Bicky.
What would you do differently?If you can’t offer a credible alternative and the way the club is run “fooks you off and gets you frustrated”, then I suggest you support someone else or stop watching football altogether.
Oh, and by using clichés such as “the promised land” makes me take you even less seriously.
the club is not viable
thats why nobody wants to take it off his hands
hate to say we could end up doing a wigan borough :crying-yellow:The club is viable if it is run within the financial constraints placed upon it; the same financial constraints you are constantly at odds with.
you ask what i would do ?sell my best players get what i can quick bring in free transfers and cheaper options
get parachute money then jump ship
sounds familiar :clap:So you don’t have anything different to offer then do you?
Thought not. :clap: :clap:
So what would you do differently then Bicky?
When you have the bank telling a club like Everton they cannot spend any money on players why do you think the situation at Wigan can be any different?
Maybe Kenwright is raking in a fortune out of owing a Premiership football club just like Whelan.
They are my team and I have supported them for 35 years through thick and thin.Yeah, right! :clap: :clap: :clap:
Hindley Blue. Am I to assume that when your posts don’t include the acronym IMO they reflect the opinion of someone else?
Just wondering like. :?I didn’t think on the balance of play we deserved to win, just my opinion.According to the newspaper I read today, although we had less possession than Norwich we had more territorial advantage (which I believe means we had more possession in the opposing half than they did). We also had three times more shots on target and had three times more blocked shots. This is not my opinion but statements made in a national newspaper which can be subject to scrutiny. We also hit the post and had a second penalty claim turned down. So, on the basis of these “facts” I would say that we did deserve to win the game and your opinion is worth diddly-squat.
Such a dull design and why have we lost the iconic stripes? Why does the club feel it has to frig with our identity so much? The strip is our brand – how many other clubs do you see messing with the core of their strip?
Feel free to tweak the trim, the shorts, the socks – but to move from block blue to stripes and back again is just ridiculous. Do you see Newcastle, Sunderland, Stoke, etc etc doing the same. :oWhat identity is that then? We don’t and never have had any affiliation to a particular strip. Latics only started playing in “full” stripes in the 1977/78 season (the season before we got elected to the league) and then it didn’t last long. Before that it was basically plain blue – like the new kit – and before that it was blue with white sleeves.
Now, how far back do you want to go?
Before the war the strip was red and white halves. The change to blue only came about after the war because – as the story goes – that was the only strip available at the time!
