PART ONE: Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - ‘There’s more finger pointing going on than at a Seventies disco...’

Martin Tarbuck:

Who’s to blame? That is the question. There’s more finger pointing going on within the Latics community than at a Seventies disco. Is it even fair to apportion or single out blame? Maybe everyone has just been doing the best we can, with the tools that we have.

As someone who edits a fanzine, I sometimes feel a bit culpable in all this. A fanzine by its very nature is supposed to be supportive 'written by fans', but fanzines were also born out of the punk movement. We are supposed to be satirical, cynical, and poke fun at anyone and everyone (and including ourselves).

Some of the downright abuse on the Latics timeline, which is now getting aimed at players, is way out of order. The chief targets of this now appear to be our midfield duo of Scott Smith and Harry McHugh - two young lads who have come through the Academy and served the club with class, endeavour and dignity, every time they have been called on.

What I couldn’t understand from these people is who exactly was supposed to play in their place? If everyone was fit, neither of them would be first choice, and they probably know that themselves. Tyrese Francois and Matt Smith have been crocked for most of the season, Ollie Norburn and Baba Adeeko have also had recent injury issues.

So even if Smith and McHugh are midfield options five and six, who else did you expect to play? You expect us to sign two more, better midfielders, just for them to not even sit on the bench if everyone had been fit? The level of patience and intolerance towards two lads who actually both had half-decent games on Tuesday really concerns me, and we seem to have an endemic culture amongst some sections of our support to slag off anything and everything the club do.

I’ve also seen the tweets the club has done regarding Spiderman, Deadpool or whatever it is. I should add, I have seen the tweets but not watched the video, because I can tell that if I clicked on it, it simply wouldn’t be my thing. But I don’t begrudge the club doing something like that to appeal to a new audience and have a bit of fun, even if it is not my cup of tea.

But on they go...the people who get angry about anything - and never, ever get anything wrong - go on the attack again. I assume they never get anything wrong, as I see very few apologies. Get some perspective in your lives, for Liddell’s sake. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s enough proper bad stuff going on in the world to be getting angry over a daft video, folks.

Let us look where we are and, if we must apportion any blame, it undoubtedly goes back to the previous board and owners. But beyond that, I genuinely believe the club is trying to do the right thing on all fronts, even where I disagree with it.

Have things gone well on the pitch? Clearly not, under either Shaun Maloney or the new manager bounce under Ryan Lowe this season so far. But in the context of where we are and what we’ve been through, we’ve actually got off pretty lightly.

Financial distress saw the likes of Portsmouth, Bolton, even Leeds or Sheffield Wednesday all drop several divisions. Whereas we’ve only really dropped one, and that being only down to what is still a level higher than where we were before Dave Whelan started funding us.

I am in no way envious of what Birmingham and Wrexham have done this year, because we have also been the club in that position, several times over. Sometimes you’ve got to accept that it’s someone else’s turn without spitting dummies out.

We are going to have to accept that what happened to us was a once in a lifetime experience. I’m sorry if you are too young or weren’t around to experience it all but, even though we are owned by a billionaire nowadays, I see no signs he is willing to downgrade to just being a 'nine hundred millionaire' by throwing a fortune at a football club as part of a vanity project.

The only reason I can find that so many fans are still so unhappy, after all the success we have had, and then the subsequent crash and burn, is that they demand we want to go back to the former. Possibly because a large chunk of our support has never known anything else.

Pre-Whelan, our crowds barely troubled 2,000 on a good day. I know people don’t like me calling this out, but it is just a simple fact. We had less than 600 season ticket holders in the Kenny Swain season, which will undoubtedly filter out a lot of lifelong fans. And quite a few of that 600 have sadly passed away.

We can’t pretend we are bigger than we are. Money’s tight, but if you are with-holding season ticket money because you’re not happy with the product, then the product probably isn’t going to improve unless you part with your season ticket money. You can blame the club for this, or you can just be a bit more honest about it and admit you’re not splashing out to stay with the club for leaner, non-trophy winning times.

If we had 20,000 paying punters on every week like they who shall remain nameless, then yes, I think we'd have a right to a grievance if we weren't up there challenging. But we don't. Nevertheless, I hope again the new managerial appointment has the desired effect and has the fans flooding back. But I fully expect there will be some new excuse to follow.

I don’t know what the future holds. I felt like Maloney might have improved us slightly next year, stabilised and started looking up and not down. And had he been given funds to get a decent striker in January, and not had tons of crippling injuries, etc, etc...but you know all this already.

Lowe has come in and promised attacking football, albeit early signs are he will need a completely different set of players to deliver the style he wants. So, there’s every chance we will still be a work in progress in August.

To quote Edwin Collins, I didn’t necessarily feel that we needed to rip it up and start again, but that is the direction the club has taken. If it doesn’t work, then we will be in this exact same position in 12 months’ time, so I hope and trust Lowe will be able to deliver on the promise we had this year of aiming for the play-offs, otherwise the same dissenting voices will turn on him too.

It would be lovely this time next year to be arguing over who deserves the credit rather than who gets the blame. Yet it seems that getting any credit off ultra critical sections of our crowd is nigh on impossible. There is a need for a big reset in the summer - of the squad, of expectations, and of some of our perceived entitlement.

I’m confident we can improve on this season if all falls into place, but we need to be behind the squad and club on this journey, not constantly lobbing stones at them. It’s adversity that defined this club, not complaining incessantly about every single thing.

Read more:

PART TWO: Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - ‘We need to look elsewhere to find the cause of the problem...’.

Mick Aspinall:

So we’re four games into Ryan Lowe’s reign here, and I think the fact we look awful is absolutely understandable. The manager will be looking to impress his style of play and philosophy on the squad while, at the same time, knowing there are players he won't have next season, while also assessing which players he doesn’t think will fit into his squad.

The players are still trying to adapt to a different style of play to what they have been used to for the last two years, and the timing of Shaun Maloney’s sacking has to have had an impact. It’s fair to say the overall performances have been clunky at best. There was reference to styles of play in one of last week’s 12th Man pieces, and it struck a chord with me.

I have to say the 2021/22 title winning season under Leam Richardson was my favourite full season of watching Wigan ever. The feeling of overcoming that admin season was palpable in the crowds, and seemed to have been picked up and run with by the team.

There was expectation at a new dawn, and that season didn’t disappoint. The football played, though, looking back, was not of a great standard, and we long balled our way to that title. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less! Looking back, it wasn’t pretty, and the Championship highlighted that at every opportunity.

Shaun Maloney brought with him a different style...patient, passing, waiting for the right opportunity, as opposed to any opportunity. Now it’s fair to say both these approaches have their fans and critics, and I would - if pushed to choose - opt for the latter. However, with Ryan Lowe’s more direct approach, there seems to be some dissension about long-ball tactics.

Now I’m not against a long ball, but I believe there’s something in between. Lowe’s philosophy of getting the ball forward quicker and playing at a higher tempo, I believe, can work with a ball playing midfield supporting. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool were never afraid to ping a cross field ball out wide, and I think we have the personnel to do that, but also go through midfield when needed with decent ball players.

I think it’s all about having options and not throwing everything on black! There are those who think that, after these last four games, we should’ve qualified for the World Club Championship, and be in the hunt for signing Mo Salah, and as we haven’t done either, like Private Frazer, think: 'We’re doomed'.

It’s way too early to judge. The task for now is to keep us up, and get us to the end of the season relatively unscathed, and everything else can wait until pre season. I still think we are only a point or two from that safety. So doom mongers, have a day off, leave the house and get some fresh air, and as always cheer on the team this weekend...and stay classy.

Tony Moon:

Find the positives. That’s what Roberto used to do. I always liked that attitude. It meant that, even on a bad day, you could take something from a game that showed progress. This week? Well, there weren’t many on Saturday (aside from the point of course), that’s for sure. Tuesday was a little better, mind you. At least their goalkeeper had to turn up (the stat of no shots on target at Orient suggests he could have stayed in the stands with a brew and a pie, and it wouldn’t have affected the game in any way).

Also, a couple of players who’ve had more than their fair share of stick (in their few games) this season had decent games (I’ll leave it to the reader to work out who). Mainly though, we got another point. That’s the third point of the new manager’s reign, and one more small step toward safety. Hell, safety! Who’d have thought we’d be worried about safety at the start of the season?!

Any road, apparently, playing for a point is an acceptable approach for the remainder of the season. Yes, yes, I know, it was also one of the allegations about the way Shaun Maloney set up for games, and therefore got him sacked, but things have changed. No, I don’t know why either. I’ve given up stressing about it though. What’s the point?

Sean Livesey:

Not been a great week, has it? Wigan Athletic - the only side without a new manager bounce. Following the disappointing defeat to them men, we followed it up with the dullest 90 minutes of football I've ever witnessed in the East London sunshine at Leyton Orient. We marginally improved on another long trip to face Gary Caldwell's Exeter City, but couldn't keep the lead we had earned, and looked massively under the cosh for most of the second half.

There's already murmurs of buyers' remorse following Ryan Lowe's arrival, which is as daft as blaming Shaun Maloney and he alone for everything that went wrong this season. These aren't Lowe's players, and they're now playing a completely different style of play from what they had been coached in for the majority of this season.

Now simply has to be a case of getting over the line and building for next August. We've gone from looking not really in danger of relegation after that Huddersfield match, to falling over the line and nervously looking over our shoulders at Burton. That game on the last Tuesday before the season finishes could be absolutely key. But hopefully it doesn't come to that

It seems there's going to have to be a complete overhaul of the squad in the summer, following the overhaul that took place last summer. Maloney has shouldered a lot of the blame for this season, but that surely must also count for the recruitment team and the sporting director?

A manager of Lowe's pedigree won't have come to Wigan without promises of backing in the transfer market. But I still can't understand how cutting loose a large part of this squad, many on multi-year deals, to be replaced by significantly better - and one would presume significantly more expensive - players marries up to the sustainability rules that Maloney and Gregor Rioch preached about for the last two years. Perhaps the hard leg work has been done in cutting costs and we can now, after three seasons, finally look forward...but that feels a stretch.

Next up at the Brick is the visit of Wrexham, who'll no doubt be following Birmingham back up to the Championship, and it can't come soon enough. Get the American billionaires out of League One and back to the Championship, and we may have a more stable division next season.

Wrexham was one of many sliding doors moments under Maloney for Wigan Athletic this season. Following the Rotherham win on Boxing Day, after the fantastic scenes at Bolton, Latics put in one of the best performances of the season at the Racecourse Ground, but not only failed to leave with three points but even lost it at the death. There were plenty of occasions like that, and that's why we're in the situation we are now.