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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.
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
Mansfield????yeah – can’t really explain it but they really get my blood boiling
Freakin scabs as well!!Griff – I’m slightly worried (yet strangely intrigued) as to who the last signing was who did make you “get out the tissues & crack one off” :scared-eek: :scared-eek: :scared-eek: :scared-eek:
Ok Sammy here’s an alternative way of running the club which would certainly make our Saturday jaunts to the DW more enjoyable. Instead of selling our best players we keep hold of them and build a team. We would then win a hell of a lot more games and attendences would increase. We may even win a cup or get into Europe and before you mock Fulham and Bolton managed it and neither are massive clubs. This would increase turnover and would probably attract better sponsorship and perhaps new investment.Just a thought like :think:
Don’t get me wrong, the dismantling of Steve Bruce’s team mid-season still really rankles with me & I could see no reason for it then & I’ve not seen or heard anything since which has made me change my mind – although I accept that Palacios & Heskey would have been sold in the summer anyway, but why not have waited. To do it in january made no sense
However just picking up on the 2 examples that you have given of smaller clubs who are more than just relegation fodder:
Fulham – bankrolled by one of the richest men in Britain. Not to an Abramovich extent, but bankrolled they most certainly are
Bolton – In their last set of accounts it showed they had approx £95mill of debts
Latics don’t have an owner like Al Fayed nor would the banks & other creditors allow them to rack up debts of the level of Bolton
Until we do Latics, like Wimbledon before us will always have to sell star players every season & replace them with cheaper versions, hoping to repeat the process. Some years it will work better than others & 1 day it won’t work at allGiven the fact that I’m a darksider I would just like to qualify the above with the comment that that does not mean that a manager shouldn’t be able to do better with some of the tools at his disposal ;)
I’m not saying that I thought Nigel Clough was right to do what he did, although he did state in his rant that it was far from his first similar mistake.
However since the start of 2011, Cwyka has made the starting line up just 3 times & that isn’t coz of injury because up to the end of last season he made the bench for all of the other games.
So far this season he hasn’t even made the bench (possibly because of injury I don’t know).
None of the above would indicate to me that Bobby made a mistake in letting him goIt 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 anyroadThere’s only 1 other game on at the time Latics are playing so I imagine it’d be pretty easy to find a pub in Camden which would be showing the official Sky live game & an Arab channel showing the Latics one. Especially when latics are playing a London team – and there’s enough pubs down that way, one of em must be showing it
Doesn’t Pete Doherty support QPR & live in Camden? Find out his local/s & go down there as I’m sure he’ll have got em to put it on!!!!!!!
The game against Liverpool could not be played at Central Park for segregation reasons. What the author forgot to mention is that whilst rival rugby fans could be trusted to stand side by side without kicking the cr@p out of each other, football fans couldnt.The cup tie in 1990 was not long after the Hillsborough disaster, and was in a period where English football had only just returned from a UEFA ban thanks to the antics of the said scousers in 1985. Like it or not, Liverpool’s supporters had a pretty appalling reputation at the time.
Whilst I fully agree that many of Lindsays comments were disrespectful to Wigan Athletic, the decision to not allow CP to become a place for Woolies & Scousers to do battle was the right one at the time.
McGoose – if I remember rightly, Latics looked into the cost & timing issues of concreting & installing crush barriers to the away end & Springfield Park & it wasn’t feasible mainly due to the timing issue of allowing everything to set, the testing & the issuing of a safety certificate.
Latics then looked at central Park & offered to pay both rent for the match & to pay for the installation & removal of segregation fencing & the rugby refused. Personally i have no problem with that, its their ground & they could do with it what they wanted. Not very neighbourly but Wigan RL’s priority was/is to Wigan Rl & if it didn’t suit them for whatever reason then fine
The issues I have with what you posted are:
1) rugby fans regularly kicked crap out of each other at that time & still do, its just not reported. I’ve only ever paid to see 6 rugby league games in my life & I’ve seen trouble at 5 of em (83%). Now I’ve been to far more football games & seen far more bother but it sure as hell doesn’t come anywhere close to trouble at 83% of the football games I’ve been to. Now I know 6 rugby league games is hardly a thorough sample of all the games played over the years but its led me to believe that I’ve either been really unfortunate with the games I’ve chosen or the trouble in & around rugby league games is hugely under reported
2) Your post seems to link the Hillsborough disaster to crowd trouble caused by Scousers & similar to the disaster at Heysel in 1985. That may not have been your intent but that’s how it came across. Liverpool supporters reputations were not appalling because of the Hillsborough disaster 18 months before this cup tie – far from it to be honestThe game should have been held at Springfield Park. It had a safety licence & was authorised by the fuzz & the council to hold “X” amount of people. My memory of why Latics tried to switch it is hazy to say the least but I can’t see any reason why if all the safety certificate’s were in place (& they were otherwise no games could have been held there) for the council & police to say Springfield Park couldn’t have been used. Was not the real reason that the club held the home leg away from Springfield Park because Bill Kenyon wanted to make money from the fixture – smaller clubs (more so non-leaguers in the FA Cup) always used to do it & the FA put a stop to it
If the police did say it couldn’t be held there then the club should have put up more of a fight & said that if they were perfectly happy for 8,000 football supporters to be in there for a game between latics & bolton then there’s no difference the same number watching for a game where Liverpool were the oppositionThe game against Liverpool could not be played at Central Park for segregation reasons. What the author forgot to mention is that whilst rival rugby fans could be trusted to stand side by side without kicking the cr@p out of each other, football fans couldnt.The cup tie in 1990 was not long after the Hillsborough disaster, and was in a period where English football had only just returned from a UEFA ban thanks to the antics of the said scousers in 1985. Like it or not, Liverpool’s supporters had a pretty appalling reputation at the time.
Whilst I fully agree that many of Lindsays comments were disrespectful to Wigan Athletic, the decision to not allow CP to become a place for Woolies & Scousers to do battle was the right one at the time.
McGoose – if I remember rightly, Latics looked into the cost & timing issues of concreting & installing crush barriers to the away end & Springfield Park & it wasn’t feasible mainly due to the timing issue of allowing everything to set, the testing & the issuing of a safety certificate.
Latics then looked at central Park & offered to pay both rent for the match & to pay for the installation & removal of segregation fencing & the rugby refused. Personally i have no problem with that, its their ground & they could do with it what they wanted. Not very neighbourly but Wigan RL’s priority was/is to Wigan Rl & if it didn’t suit them for whatever reason then fine
The issues I have with what you posted are:
1) rugby fans regularly kicked crap out of each other at that time & still do, its just not reported. I’ve only ever paid to see 6 rugby league games in my life & I’ve seen trouble at 5 of em (83%). Now I’ve been to far more football games & seen far more bother but it sure as hell doesn’t come anywhere close to trouble at 83% of the football games I’ve been to. Now I know 6 rugby league games is hardly a thorough sample of all the games played over the years but its led me to believe that I’ve either been really unfortunate with the games I’ve chosen or the trouble in & around rugby league games is hugely under reported
2) Your post seems to link the Hillsborough disaster to crowd trouble caused by Scousers & similar to the disaster at Heysel in 1985. That may not have been your intent but that’s how it came across. Liverpool supporters reputations were not appalling because of the Hillsborough disaster 18 months before this cup tie – far from it to be honestThe game should have been held at Springfield Park. It had a safety licence & was authorised by the fuzz & the council to hold “X” amount of people. My memory of why Latics tried to switch it is hazy to say the least but I can’t see any reason why if all the safety certificate’s were in place (& they were otherwise no games could have been held there) for the council & police to say Springfield Park couldn’t have been used. Was not the real reason that the club held the home leg away from Springfield Park because Bill Kenyon wanted to make money from the fixture – smaller clubs (more so non-leaguers in the FA Cup) always used to do it & the FA put a stop to it
If the police did say it couldn’t be held there then the club should have put up more of a fight & said that if they were perfectly happy for 8,000 football supporters to be in there for a game between latics & bolton then there’s no difference the same number watching for a game where Liverpool were the oppositionWould that be the same Thomas Cwyska who was publicly ridiculed as poor & naive by his manager at a struggling Championship side?
Can’t help thinking that as someone who has since struggled at a lower level that Bobby did exactly the right thing in letting him goI would imagine that Jimmy Bullard would be more than aware that the days of him being able to command a salary close to even half the reputed £45k a week he was on at Hull are long gone
Its not often that I’m right but I can remember texting in to talksport coming home from work one day when Adrian Durham was banging on that he couldn’t believe Hull had signed him & what a coup it was, that it was suicide on Hull’s part for a team on the slide to be signing a player who quite clearly had major problems with his knee on a long term contract for £45k a week
He mocked but I was reet!!!He deserves to be hung by everybody for his new barnet alone. nevermind goin down like a girl’s blouse when someone strokes his chin!!!
:dance: :dance: :dance:
Apparently he was some form of preacher/vicar/priest coz that quote is lifted from one of his sermons
No idea how he got his nickname – maybe MickyC will chastise me for quoting someone I know nowt about!!!
EDIT – apparently he wasn’t a hermit. One of the leaders of the first crusade by all accounts which considering the amount of death & pillage that created brings to mind the words pot, kettle & black
I see Roberto said he thnks we are two players light at the moment which must presumably include at elast one striking option. I think Dicko is not seen as one for throwing in right now and is not the replacement for Boselli.I’d disagree with that Griff.
Lets face it, Boselli was 4th in line for the striker’s position behind Rodallega, Sammon & Di Santo so i think that Dicko is his replacement & will be used about as much as Boselli would have been had he not been farmed out.
I don’t think its any coincidence that before Dicko put pen to paper we were 3 players light & now its 2
Bobby also specifically mentioned having not replaced N’Zogbia & Cleverley neither of whom were striking optionsOn the other hand he did of course bid for Odinwengie last week & when asked post match whether a player was being sought to replace Rodallega he said “no it would be an addition”
The problem is if our manager openly admits that he doesn’t know who he is going to bring in (apparently he only knows the character of the players he wants) we haven’t got a cat in hells chance of knowing!!
bigroyn
Playing Gomez and Di Santo reminds me of Einsteins definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”.quote]
The problem is that faced with the squad Bobby has to choose from & a Rodallega who isn’t match fit (presumably) there was very little option but to play Gomez on Saturday.
McCarthy has been played there & has been poor. Stam has been played there & has been poor.
The only other option I could see before the game was to play Jones on the right & for him to cut inside with this “sweet left foot” Bobby was taking about when he signed
