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Surely this should bring into serious question our manager’s judgement if this story is true
From what I can gather Boselli was scouted for a long time & this culminated in John Benson reporting back that he didn’t think Boselli would fit into Martinez’s system and/or adapt to the British game & that Whelan shouldn’t buy him.
Martinez by all accounts then kicks up the mother of all stinks & insists he knows what he’s talking about, he’s the manager & he should be given a club record some to buy him. Benson leaves the club
Now I know every manager buys their fair share of stinkers from Alex Ferguson & Arsene Wenger with loads fo money to the Kenny Swain’s of this world who had none but come on I see the alleged activity of Martinez over this transfer as very much staking his reputation on him & it would appear that he has bombed & that the club is looking to ship him out (I read in a sunday paper that he was gonna go out to the UAE on loan) & its not simply a case of needing time to adaptOn top of that he’s spent a total of £12mill on 3 strikers in the 18 months he’s been here. 1 has already been shipped out, the club appear to be looking to ship another one out & the 3rd has yet to score for us & with a top flight record of 1 goal in about 40 games doesn’t look like he will any time soon.
Its a bad record from a significant amount of money investedI on the other hand remember many instances of the crowd shouting such things as “Kenyon Out”, “Hamilton Out”, “Sack the board” and “Swain out” during my time watching Latics at Springfield Park.
I’ve yet to hear anybody start up that chant re Martinez regardless of how much people moan on here about him
Next year will be our year and I can look back on last year in the knowledge that I supported Wigan Athletic and I don’t look like a complete dick.Somehow I can only see 2 of those 3 statements coming true ;)
I like the fact that Sunderlaqnd are ‘plotting’ a summer move for N’Zogbia. That means he is going nowhere in January, though i can’t beleive he would look at Sunderland to advance his career, oh yeah, money.Can’t believe he would look to Sunderland to advance his career???
Why the hell not? I know its only half way through the season but you are talking about a club who are 6th, level on points with Spurs & only 3 behind Chelsea (I aint seen the table but some journalist in The Star said it yesterday), who have one of the biggest stadiums in the division & the potential to fill it every week & a wealthy backer prepared to put his money where his mouth is (for the time being)
Compared to Latics who are the lowest scorers in the league, battling relegation & who (for the time being at least) would seem to have reached the limits of their potentialAnd yet you don’t think a move to Sunderland would advance his career???
I think Diame is a good player when he has the ball & in the tackle. My big problem with him is that I like to see a midfielder who loses possession, or is pushing forward to support an attack which breaks down, bust a gut to get back to help out his defence – for me a that’s the role of a midfielder. Help out when defending & help out when going forward
So what riles me with Diame is watching him (when he does lose the ball or pushes forward to support an attack that breaks down) trot back at a leisurely pace like he hasn’t got a feckin care in the world
“All Whelan wants is the money and with Martinez in charge (who wants to get us into Europe somehow) we could be seeing some more free signings from Spain next month with the majority of the £7m going to Whelan and his family.”
In replay to Sephton’s post above – I don’t know who will come in during January or how much they will cost but to say the majority of the £7mill will go to Whelan & his family when that same man authorised spending over £10mill on 2 strikers in the summer (when our income from sales was negligible) is takin the pish somewhat
I remember fondly the hat-tricks in the cups against the big clubs then …. No one calls Rooney and Torres crap when they have an in-different period because they know the quality will shine through again. …. No doubt at all he would have made it to the very top Ellington.Just 3 points to pick up on there:
i don’t recall the “hat-tricks against the big clubs” – i remember him getting one against a depleted WBA side (a perfect hat-trick if I remember right & everyone of em a bit of a beaut) but that was it. That’s not to slate the numerous other goals he got against numerous other clubs but as I said in my first post on this thread – I think people let the mists of time cloud their memory
The thing with Rooney & Torre’s poor spells (bearing in mind Torres has been injured pretty much for the last 6 months) is that they are short & irregular. Ellington’s weren’t – they were lengthy & pretty regular. You’re right though that the majority of Latics fans stuck by him during these lean times coz they knew what he was capable of
Ellington didn’t make it to the top because he wasn’t good enough – if he’d been good enough then it wouldn’t mattered one jot whether he’d stayed at Latics or gone to WBA. He’s also had numerous other opportunities to resurrect his career & he’s failed at them all including one where the manager who got the best out of him (Jewell) was in charge of the team & it made no difference. That to me indicates its because he wasn’t/isn’t good enough to make it to the top. I always thought it was interesting that the 2 hottest properties in the Championship in 04/05 were Ellington & Bent – Bent ignored a clutch of other clubs to go to a well established top half/mid-table side (at the time at least). The only club I can recall putting in the bid to activate Ellington’s release clause were a relegation fighting/yo yo club. If he’d been as good as people seem to remember he was then bigger clubs than that would have come in for him especially as his agent made it very public the season before what his release clause wasI should point out that he is undoubtedly one of the best centre forwards we have had but the best? Not for me & I think he reached the limits of his abilities in the Championship with us
I’ve never seen him live but the impression I get of him from the telly is that whilst some of his observational stuff is quite funny, he thinks that a large part of being funny is by being louder than everybody else & that the louder he says somet the funnier it is a la Johnny Vegas
That said, its in my genes to be distrusting of scousers so maybe that’s why he gets my back up
That wasn’t intended as any sort of dig. Don’t know how it could have been (disagreeing with someone to me isn’t a “dig”) seen that way but apologies if it did.
Anyway my point was that just because Boselli & Di Santo can’t score up against the Terry’s, Ferdinands, etc.. of this division doesn’t mean that (to me anyway) it stops somebody being able to criticise a player who used to come up against the Shaun Garnett’s of other division – just as it doesn’t stop somebody sayign Pat Gavin, Neil Morton, Peter Thorne etc.. weren’t much kop either
As I’ve said I liked him but there were plenty of times when he looked anything but superb
Sorry now, but a big resounding NO to terracing.Why? Because I think people forget how crap it actually was. What? standing on freezing concrete, which was far worse if wet. I think people are forgetting the reasons why all seaters came into being. Safety. If terracing came back, how long before fences mad a reappearance? Why are people so nostalgic for “the 80s”? It was a crap decade for football! Disaster after disaster, playing into the hands of a Thatcherite goverment.
And also, another reason why I cant see it happening is that clubs would have to reduce ticket prices.
And lets be honest, if Wiganers won’t turn up to SIT DOWN at matches, do you honestly expect them to turn up to STAND? No.
To be fair if you were stood in a covered terrace that was relatively full it is far less “freezing” than sitting down at a football game – I remember a midweek game at Springfield Park which must have been around 1990ish. I used to sell programmes & gto in the ground for nowt & for some reason decided to sit in the Phoenix Stand. It was feckin freezin so at half time I moved into the St Andrew’s side & it was far warmer
Yes terracing was removed for safety reasons after Hillsborough but that was in 1989 & H&S advances in the almost 22 years since then have come on in leaps & bounds &, as has been proved at the stadia in germany, can be made as “safe” as seats can.
I fail to see how putting someone in terracing is going to make them more likely to invade the pitch as there’d be no need for fencing to go back up – football is a completely different beast to what it was in the 70’s when the fencing was erectedWhen he was on fire he was on fire. When he wasn’t, and that was at regular intervals and for sustained runs of matches he was bloody awful
In fact so frequent were his bad patches (both in part due to his shoulder injuries & just bad form) that he regularly used to get slated on messageboards during these times
I remember a City fan who used to be on the 6-a-side team I played for asking me about him as they were linked with him at one point. i said that moving to a bigger more established club than Latics at that stage would destroy him because I felt that he was such a “confidence” player and if he moved to a club like City they would expect instant results all the time & they wouldn’t go easy on him during his bad spells. Because we knew how good he could be at Latics or because we were more used to having to accept players flaws in the lower leagues the Latics fans went easy on him. I said if he didn’t hit the ground running at whichever club he’d eventually leave to join then he’d never make it there
he struggled early on at West Brom, the crowd got on his back & he never recovered
despite all that I’d have loved to have seen him alongside Roberts in the top flight. I have my doubts as to how well he’d have done but there’s always a part of me that hopes it would have been successful just coz those 2 always knew where & what the other one was doing & that’s a vital ingredient of any strike force. Unfortunately he let greed get the better of him so we will never know – & its not his agents fault, he was a big boy & completely free to make his own decisions.
personally i think Whelan was bob on to say to him (& others) that they could have improved deals but that it would be appearance & performance related – too many clubs have handed out big contracts to existing players when they’ve gone up & suffered because of it. Whelan’s philosophy was if you are as good as you say you will be in this division then prove it & you’ll be rewarded. Ellington wanted all up front & to be paid it regardless of how poorly he may have performed – I think Ellington himself said at the time that the offer at Wigan could have earned him more money but that he felt he’d proved himself to be worthy of the money upfrontIn response to VAT just because 2 of our current 3 strikers don’t seem to be able to hit a cows ar$e with a banjo doesn’t mean that people can’t point out the flaws of someone who played for us 1 & 2 divisions lower and against inferior opposition. That said, his goal scoring record does put him up there with our top strikers – just that to ignore his bad points is to me as bad as ignoring his good uns
I think some people are letting the passage of time blur their memory about Nathan Ellington whilst he was at Latics
There were times when he looked absolutely unstoppable. There were also just as many times when he looked about as good as Pat Gavin. He regularly just to have a glut of goals in successive matches then he’d have a bit of a stinker, his confidence would nose dive & he’d go on a pretty lengthy run of games without a goal & where to be frank he’d look bloody awful. I remember during and after a midweek away game at Stockport where Ellington completely fluffed a 1on1 with their keeper which ultimately cost us 3 points & had a mare in general he was getting all sorts of stick off the crowd. I also remember coming away from a game at the JJB (can’t remember who against) where you had groups of people arguing that he was a completely over-rated crock of turd – & that was when we were in the 3rd division
I don’t think there can be any doubt whatsoever either that he looked a far better player when playing alongside Jason Roberts than he did alongside anyone else.
I would also argue that as Jason Roberts has is still a premier league player whereas Ellington’s career has nosedived somewhat that of the 2 Roberts was & still is the better playerThere’s no doubt that Ellington was amongst the best strikers we’ve ever had but “by far the best centre forward we have ever had”???????? Not in a million years
“On a serious note, a lot of stadiums would have to be redesigned to accomodate the safety aspect, take the east stand, would be too steep to allow standing areas.”
I don’t think it would. Campaigners for standing areas point to the example of german stadiums. From what I can gather these can be adapted for both seating & standing. I’m unclear as to whether the step can be spun round to reveal a seat but I do know that they have a crush barrier at every level – primarily to stop the momentum of the crowd surges but it would also make the steepness or other wise of a stand irrelevant too
I seem to remember him missing one but can’t for the life of me remember who against
Bryan Griffiths was the king of the penalty takers – think he only missed one during his time with us
Honourable mention too to Roy Carroll for being king of the penalty savers
Didnt Roy save 3 pens in a week, when he was on international duty and back with us.[/quote]
I don’t remember to be honest – what I do seem to remember is us giving away quite alot of penalties in the 98/99 season & him saving virtually every single one of em
In fact I was so confident he was gonna save any pen taken at him that when an FA Cup tie against Notts County went to penalties in the replay at Springifield Park I though we were home & dry – he didn’t get near any of em & we went out when Jorg Smeets (who’d been brought on right at the end of extra time so he could be involved in the penalties) put his deciding kick wide
