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Huron Properties own Euxton training ground. They bought it with their money & Latics pay rent.
It’s purchase had nowt to do with the sale of players although that may be funding the rent
I wasn’t there, but from looking at the telly, Powell has stood near the keeper but far enough away to allow him to release the ball (as witnessed by the fact the ball winds up down near Latics penalty area direct from the kick).
However he’s close enough for there to have been some contact after the ball was released which has led to a bit of handbags which I’m guessing that the assistant spotted & told the ref that the keeper was the first to commit an offence – hence a Latics free kick & 97th minute winnerSimples!! ;)
Barrow said he took him off at half time coz he needed someone with the legs to run into the box & he doesn’t feel that’s part of Sam’s game – his words not mine
If that’s right, that’s a joke. He’s exactly that type of player. Unreal.[/quote]
It’s on wigantoday.net in one of the post Newcastle interviews – it baffled me too
Barrow said he took him off at half time coz he needed someone with the legs to run into the box & he doesn’t feel that’s part of Sam’s game – his words not mine
Mr Whelan pulled the plug on any investment in the club once we won the fa cup.
That is a FACT.Only its not fact at all. The drive to make the club stand on its on 2 feet started when Bruce was still in charge in 2009
The difference being that since Latics won the FA Cup & were subsequently relegated the TV income of £40mill has drastically reduced & now disappeared
Its got beggar all to do with Whelan pulling the plug on anythingThere’s no doubt that this has been one of the most depressing seasons in living memory, but can we put our fingers on what exactly went wrong? Below, I’ve listed my thoughts, but please chip in with your own in the hope that someone at the club might read and learn from some of this.1) Caldwell’s clearout. He should never have let Pearce go, or send Morsy and Colclough out on loan. The team that won the league last year should have been given a chance in the Championship.
2) Going the whole season without a recognised right back. That’s apart from Luke Burke, of course, who impressed over three games or so, then was allowed to go out on loan.
3) Signing so many midfielders. How could the team possibly incorporate Nick Powell, Jordi Gomez, Michael Jacobs, Yanic Wildschutt and Alex Gilbey, or David Perkins, Shaun McDonald and Max Power? The squad was so imbalanced that just about all those players ended up filling in at right back.
4) Certain players not turning up. Alex Bogdan goes without saying, but Power, Grigg and Jacobs were all disappointing.
5) Did we panic and sack Caldwell too early?
6) Hiring Warren Joyce. I think we can all agree this was a mistake. Whatever reputation he had as a coach was undermined by some of the most boring football Wiganers have ever seen. To his credit, though, we did start defending better and he brought Morsy out from the cold.
7) Lack of professionalism.,We’re run by a 20-something chippy manager (or are we?), and Jonathan Jackson has been invisible all season. No manager since Martinez has been allowed to bring in their own backroom staff. Instead, we rely on a network of old boys who, this season, seemed to come and go intermittently (Pollitt, Cribley, Jackson, Atherton, Doolan, Barrow). It’s great to see them back st the club but are they the best people for the job? Joyce’s comments about fitness levels or the number of unexplained long-term injuries recently (Reece James, Donervon Daniels) would suggest not,
8) Getting rid of the local lads. Chow, Flores, Jennings and Burke may not have been worldbeaters but, in this situation, they may just have tried a little harder for their local team. Furthermore, we might have given them time rather than getting on their backs; local players are good for morale and no seen as mercenaries like Tinnicliffe and Hanson.
9) Too many loan signings, some of whom (Marcus Browne) were moaning as soon as they got here and half of whom were injured anyway.
10) Selling Wildschutt. The price may have been right but he was the only player who provided any surprise bits of magic all season.
So, which is the most important? Or can you add your own thoughts as to where it all went wrong?
The ones that I’d disagree with Martin are points 1, 5, 7, 8 & 10
1 – personally I never rated Pearce. he was part of the team that took Latics down from the championship last time & for me got exposed regularly at League 1 level (only the players who got the chances more often than not couldn’t take advantage of those errors). Colclough didn’t impress me at Lge 1 level either & I thought was a poor signing & he wasn’t even a regular at MK Dons this season. I don’t think a couple of moderately impressive brief cameos since his return are evidence enough to say it was a mistake to leave him out for so long. Morsy is a strange one. Again didn’t impress me in Lge1 but he himself felt he was being played out of position & it led to a fall out with Caldwell. That said he impressed when Joyce put him further forward but is looking poor again now that he’s been dropped further back & withdrawal at half time on Saturday, coupled with Barrow’s comments about him not being a box to box player plus his absence last night would indicate to me that he may have had another falling out with the management.
I don’t think the clearout itself was the problem coz I don’t think last season’s squad was good enough by & large to compete – you kind of hint at it in point 4 when you say that Power, Grigg & Jacobs were all disappointing. For me that’s coz they aren’t good enough for this level & they were some of the most promising players last season5 – Caldwell made alot of mistakes from the close season onwards. Whether it was his assumption that Grigg would find goals as easy to come by this season as last or his decision to try to go back to a back 3 that hadn’t worked at the start of the previous season either. There were many more too. His recruitment was also poor, but for me a massive failing was his inability to see where things were going wrong & change it during a game. In the previous season early doors he recognised where he’d gone wrong with initial formations & players in games & was quick to change it with 1st half substitutions, revamping formations at half time & more often than not it worked – this season he just seemed incapable of identifying what was going wrong & putting it right. The warning signs were there during a dire pre-season
7 – I don’t get where the criticism of Jonathan Jackson is coming from. He’s the number cruncher & Latics are doign well to keep things on an even keel financially. From the people that have been to these meetings with the top dogs at the club, Jackson has had no input into choosing managers, firing them, deciding on coaching staff or player recruitment beyond what we can & can’t afford. Sharpe I don’t know – he talks the talk & ultimately he’s only chosen the manager & not the players or the tactics
8 – the local lads you name aren’t good enough with the possible exception of Burke who did seem to have something about him. I’d try hard if I pulled on a Latics shirt but I’d still be garbage
10 – With Wildschutt in the team Latics were still struggling. he just offered the odd bit of spark here & there but it wouldn’t have made that much difference. He wanted to go & the money was offered to our manager for new recruits & brought in Bogle who looked like he had somet about him till he was plonked up front on his todd with no support & dragged down with the rest of the garbage
For me the main reasons are poor recruitment (either in quality or the style of player) from the end of last season, a manager who seemed to throw aware all the lessons he’d learned in the previous season, an appalling managerial appointment in Joyce & further poor recruitment in January
As someone has said too many old boys in the backroom staff. Problem being most of them never even reached a high level so we are very amateur run . I loved the likes of Parky, Atherton etc but they are from a different time. If you are gonna play the modern game tactics formation then you need modern coaches who can coach it properly. No more room for sentiment a total clearout needed. YAMSHold on a second you can’t say that there are too many old boys in the back room & that most of them never even reached a high level.
Peter Atherton spent virtually all his post Latisc career in the top flight & at one time had the record premier league appearance
Joe Parkinson was also a top flight player 6 months after leaving Latics before injury ended his career
Mike Pollitt played top flight football for LaticsSo basically you’re left with John Doolan who hasn’t even been at Latics for a few years up until the other week & Graham Barrow who was a top flight coach under Martinez for several years & stayed at Latics because the players asked him to (admittedly we only have Barrow himself as evidence of that)
I’m sure that I’ve missed someone off but I really don’t think that your theory stands up to any scrutiny
Many rugby supporters are still in denial of the fact that the success that allowed them to monopolise the sport during the 80s and 90s, where they operated well beyond their means, left the club bankrupt. They cannot bring themselves to blame the previous regime for this predicament so a scapegoat had to be found.Then along came Whelan who would have been an acceptable saviour had he not already gone and bought Wigan Athletic, a club seen by many rugby followers as an insignificance and for whom he was already underwriting the cost of building a brand-new stadium with a plan to elevate them to the higher reaches of the Football League and even the Premier League.
Your average Wigan RLFC supporter had been used to being top dog, the main draw, the town’s ambassador for all things sporting and more. To have their noses put out in such a way by the threat of looming bankruptcy and the indignity of ground sharing with little Latics was regarded as too much of a climbdown and beneath them. Had it been the other way around Whelan would now be held in higher esteem and not subject to the nonacceptance from the rugby lot of the significant role he played in ensuring that at the very least Wigan RLFC had a stadium to play in.
There’s 2 newspaper articles that I remember reading back in the late 90’s that always stick out for me.
I’m sure one was back in about 1995 when talk of a shared stadium was doing the rounds now that Whelan had bought us & the RL’s chairman did an interview where he was quoted as saying “We’re the most famous RL club in the world. Why would we want or need to share with a 3rd division football club”
Fast forward a year or 2 & money worries were rearing their head at Central Park & it seems that one of the big causes of those worries was the fact that the directors had built an annual trip to Wembley in the Challenge Cup into their budget. So when they got beat by Salford in 1996 it set off a domino effect with their financesFast forward a year or 2 more & the most famous RL club in the world are sharing their stadium with a 3rd division football club!!
Anyone with more than half a brain cell knows that the JJB was already being built (if not completed) when Whelan bough the RL club & had them as tennants rather than Orrell RU as was originally proposed.
The money from the sale of Central Park went into pying off their debtors who were considerable at the time to the extent that their future was looking precarious
That is fact & only needs a quick google search to see when the building began & when Whelan purchased the RL club to confirm thatOn the flip side, a friend of mine did a post grad course in Football Administration at Liverpool John Moore’s & (as it was around the same time) he did his thesis on the building of the JJB stadium – he was given access to all the info & met with the council & Whelan on numerous occasions.
Anyway I happened to be whinging one day about how Latics were limited to a 10k capacity at the new groung whilst the Warriors were allowed many more not long after it opened & said that seeing as how Latics gad part funded the cost of the stadium through selling Springfield Park it was unfair that we were being punished in terms of the lower capacity. Whilst taking the pish about the lower capacity (he’s a Bolton fan) he did say that no money from the sale of either stadium went towards the cost of building the new one. It all went into each club’s coffersLike someone else has said, it was Sport England, the football foundation, the council & Whelco who funded the building of the JJB not Latics & not Warriors either
Shame that – when I still lived up north I’ve ran the line there a few times & they always got decent crowds & treated you well.
I’d noticed from looking at the tables that they’d gone from a team challenging at the top over the last few seasons to being stuck down the bottom and had wondered about what was going on
Hopefully they’ll pull through
I don’t know who bought the Charnock Richard site but “the club” didn’t buy the Euxton one off Bolton – Huron Properties did
Also, just coz it says Wigan Athletic on the planning permission it doesn’t mean that Wigan Athletic own the land at Charnock Richard. ‘ve put in planning applications where I used to work & it was always in the school’s name even though the land & buildings were owned by a charity who allowed the school use of the buildings for a peppercorn rent
The Cowley,s work as a pair not allowed here so they are never going to be in the running. Someone has mentioned Adkins and we do like to employ ex players so that may be a good shout.No they don’t – the older brother is the manager & the younger brother is his assistant. Just like Joyce was allowed to fire existing coaching staff & bring in some new ones, I’d imagine that any new manager would be allowed to do so too.
I’d say that they should be in the running if they’re interested. Please not Adkins though – his time has been & gone & he’s performed poorly in his last few appointments
I think the guy at Lincoln might be worth taking a punt on.
Similarly to Dyche it looks like he has a system & knows how to get his players to buy into it so gets the team playing far greater than the sum of its parts – worked wonders at Braintree & are producing even better results at Lincoln now they have a bit more money behind them
We’ve seen how poor a standard Lge1 is & providing that the club doesn’t have to sell all its current players in order to stay afloat there is still a core of a squad there that should be able to challenge for promotion
We shall see over the next few weeks how good Barrow is, If he turns it round ill be the first to eat humble pie but I wont be holding my breath. He should have gone when Bobby did then just maybe we wouldn’t be searching for a sixth manager since RM left.
Are you seriously saying Barrow is responsible for the failings of 6 managers?[/quote]
A number 2 can be priceless as we had with Hutchings he was nothing more and failed badly as a manager and have you also forgot Barrow has been sacked before . Time will tell if I’m right but you tell me why you think so many managers had bit the dust here. Whatever style of play formation etc a club should not go through so many managers in such a short time. The common denominator here is Barrow and just maybe some who have been in the hot seat resented having to work with him and it hindered their progress. One fact that cannot be denied is that for whatever reason with Barrow in his role it hasn’t worked whoever the manager was. We have gone down the sacking route and fortunes haven’t changed so look at what else could be wrong. I don’t expect our style to suddenly be cavalier but I’m desperately hoping to be off the mark.[/quote]
The manager tells the coach what to do & not the other way round. Like another poster has said, Caldwell, Rosler, Coyle, MacKay all had different styles so to think he’s the tail wagging the dog & keeps changing his mind about the style of football he likes, to me, doesn’t make any sense
Now, I’m not saying that he is a good coach, I haven’t got the foggiest, & I do find it odd that he seems to stay no matter who the manager is but to say he is responsible for the failure of consecutive managers doesn’t make any sense
I should also point out that I don’t think he’ll be able to save this season as i don’t think he is a good enough manager
5 players changed from last game to first game, is nearly half a team not wholesale?
Pearce was better than Buxton is, Morsy, Colclough, McAleney, Vuckic and Wabara should have been kept here and involved from the start. We would be better off than we are now.We’ll have to agree to disagree
Pearce in my opinion wasn’t up to the Championship & showed as much when he was part of the squad that got relegated the year before & needed replacing. Buxton is (IMO) far better despite having deficiencies of his own
Colclough rarely started when we were in Lge 1 & on the occasions I saw him I could see why. He then went to MK Dons & wasn’t used as a regular starter there either, so quite why you consider that he should have been starting at Latics in a division above I don’t know.
Wabara – again in & out of the side & turned down a contract offer to stay. Came back on trial this season & wasn’t offered a deal, nor anywhere else, which indicates that he needed replacing
Vuckic – Again, rarely used by Caldwell & has played only 10 times for a team now a division below Latics so why should he have been kept on & used from the start?
McAleny – Didn’t rate him personallyThe only one that I’d agree with out of your list is Morsy which was bizarre
