Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - Did anyone else notice the hair-raising shock at the DW?

Alan Rogers:

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first and foremost. What the hell has Gary Caldwell done to his hair? I've mentioned before that sitting near to the dugouts can be a mixed blessing. During the Uwe Rosler era, for example, it was fascinating to listen to him lecturing the bench about what was happening on the pitch behind him. I don't know how he knew because he seemed to rarely look at the pitch! But a few weeks ago, it was frustrating to be constantly distracted by the antics of Steve Evans. However, last week it was Caldwell’s barnet that somehow caught my eye. Obviously I couldn't discuss it with my neighbours - they already think I'm a senile, old fool - so I sat there flicking my eyes from Caldwell’s head to the non-action on the pitch. What was different? I couldn’t put my finger on it. At half-time I went for my usual chat on the concourse, in a group including two, how shall I say, 'more mature' ladies. One of the ladies immediately said: 'What the hell has happened to Gary's head'? My ears picked up! The other lady - who is a hairdresser - replied: 'He's definitely dyed it! In fact I would say it's a sort of Chocolate Labrador brown'! I smiled to myself. Vindicated! And that was the highlight of the game. It’s more than disappointing when the only thing of interest during the afternoon appeared to be our ex-player’s tonsorial habits. The only other comment I want to make about Saturday is that, once again, it became obvious our defence really struggles when Matt Smith isn't there to take the ball from them. We were awful during the first half, picked up in the second period, but never deserved to win. Moving quickly on to Tuesday, Matt Smith was back in the side, and the first half was a vast improvement. To be fair, I don't think Matt was particularly outstanding - the display was down to a much-improved all-round team performance. Well it was for 44 minutes, until a goal from nowhere drew the scores level. From past experience this year, this would be the signal for Latics to withdraw into their shells...surely this wouldn't be the case on Tuesday? Alas, once again, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde appeared, Oxford grew in confidence, and Wigan looked more and more shell-shocked. They only improved when it was too late and they had gone behind. Once again, they had managed to turn triumph into disaster but, when you drill down into it, the figures try to tell a different story. Latics had 53 per cent of possession, more corners than Oxford, and both sides had five shots on target. But as we know, figures can be deceiving. For most of the second half, the Wigan players looked dejected. Perhaps this was down to the fact that in the last two games there have been some cruel deflections, and they have been very unlucky. Or perhaps, once again, they were fed up with the inconsistencies of the officials - 21 fouls and three yellow cards for Oxford, against nine fouls and four cards for us. We are all completely fed up complaining about poor referees. We now have the most cards in the EFL and, although I can’t defend them all, some of them have been a joke. Again you can do a lot with figures...on paper, we appear to be an ill-disciplined, perhaps even dirty, team. Although we have had some lack of discipline, I would never call us a dirty team! In fact, one of my pet gripes has been we are short of a good old-fashioned enforcer in midfield. Having said all that, I didn’t think we deserved anything on Saturday. But we were unlucky on Tuesday. However, the most alarming thing about Tuesday was how easily some heads went down when they realised they had been hit by more lucky deflections. And the even sadder thing, within minutes of the final whistle, the noisy minority were once again shouting for the manager to be removed. Onwards and upwards!

Charlie Keegan:

We are only eight league games into 2024 and we have witnessed 25 goals already - 12 of which have been scored by Latics....I miss the boring 1-0 victories! If we can pick up a few more of those, I am sure we would all be happy with that (just don’t check the #wafc hashtag for confirmation)... The 4-2 loss at Oxford United was disappointing. I did not feel our overall performance was worthy of being hit for four but, like a wise Paul Cook once said; it’s an unforgiving league. Latics simply did not defend the ball - or our box - well enough, and that extends beyond just our defensive players. I am watching our players further up the field not close down the opposition quickly enough, giving them time to look up and assess their forward plays in depth. Analysis of what the best play will be can take a matter of seconds, and our players need to learn quickly that we cannot afford to allow those seconds of analysis. We will get hurt again and again because of it. That said, this season is all about perspective, and results like this need that perspective. Eight of our starting XI were 23 or under, with only Sean Clare (27), Charlie Goode (28), and Jordan Jones (29) older. Oxford are a side chasing the play-offs and, while our deductions mean we are down a few places from where we should be (around ninth), we cannot get ahead of ourselves in terms of demanding these big results. They will come, and we have a solid foundation to build on for next season. It excites me to see our big setbacks over the last few years haven’t truly defined us as a club. We are very much alive and kicking, and the future does look promising with Shaun Maloney. We have been put to the sword many times, but we have refused to give up. Not a lot of teams who have faced the adversity that we have ended up having such a brilliant uprising so soon after. For us fans, we just need to remain patient and allow this rebuild to take place while backing every player who pulls on a Latics shirt. Is every play going to be fast and exciting? No, but neither is every play for Barcelona or Liverpool, and we can’t expect Wigan Athletic to play that way. Jose Mourinho once said ‘You are born loving a club, you are going to die loving the same club. You do not change your club. But sometimes you are not in love with your team’. I think it has been clear this season that some people are not in love with this team at the moment, but the only thing we can do is support them, encourage them, and back them to the very end of the season and beyond. We have young, homegrown players who have a deep feeling for the club. They need encouragement and nurturing. Thelo Aasgaard is currently in the form of his life, and it is so very exciting to watch. I look at this squad now, and who our manager is, and I do not think it is out of the realms of possibility that we can get promoted next season - one way or another. Now, a lot needs to happen on and off the field to piece that potential future together, but it is possible. Maloney said he ‘doesn’t like waiting’ for things to come together, and neither do we as fans. But you can tell he fully understands the job at hand and he is determined to get this club back to being one we identify with and love like we used to. The least we can do is back him on this journey as he has devoted himself fully to us since he took over just over 12 months ago. He deserves our full support. The main target is picking up those final 13 points to get us to the sacred 50-point mark. I do think the safety threshold will end up being lower, but that should remain our target. Four wins and one draw, or three wins and four draws in the last 14 games, is very achievable. Shrewsbury next, and they are a side in desperate need of putting a run together. Their home form (seven wins, two draws, seven losses) is much better than their away form (three wins, three draws, 10 losses), so we will need to make sure we put in a big shift to bring home the full three points. Like every week, I believe. Up the Tics.

Matt Auffrey:

We’re six-and-a-half months into the season, and we’ve seen our performance levels fluctuate quite a bit over that span. Some weeks we’ve looked like promotion contenders, whereas other weeks have seen us concede five deflected goals en route to losing consecutive matches. Every team will take some lumps over the course of a long season, and we just so happened to have taken two of our bigger ones over this past week. When the dust settled at the end of Tuesday evening, six points and six other teams still stood between us and the relegation places in the league table. The squad we have now clearly has some very good individual pieces, but is still quite disjointed as an entire unit. Our starting XI is constantly changing, and we particularly have struggled to form a consistent partnership in the centre of the pitch. While Josh Magennis and Charlie Kelman have contributed a handful of goals from the No.9 position over the past few weeks, neither player has done enough on the whole to cement a guaranteed starting role. Maloney still has time to explore different line-ups over these next few matches, but he will have to do so with the expectation we grab a chunk of points with this next stretch of fixtures looking very favourable on paper. A trip to Shrewsbury represents a prime opportunity to turn the ship around against a side that is below us in the league table and has generally been out of form for the past two months. However, the odds of Latics seeing this weekend’s opponent drop down to 10 men in the fifth minute again (courtesy of a Chey Dunkley red card) are very slim. Even though we have lost three of our last four matches, we’ve been the better team for large stretches of play in each game. If we clean up a few key areas going into Saturday, there’s a good chance we put together a complete 90-minute performance and leave New Meadow with three points. We’ve faced bigger and more prolonged setbacks than what we’ve encountered over the past two matches. Some 14 fixtures remain, and a quick look at the opponents should inspire confidence we will attain safety with several matches to spare. Let’s give Maloney and the lads another opportunity to bounce back on Saturday. There’s still a lot of football to be played, and there’s good reason to believe our best football is still ahead of us.

Tony Moon:

The wheels on the bus aren’t falling off, yet. The driver’s in his seat and the destination’s set. Some of our fans are real whingeing gets. All, day, long. The wheels on the bus are all still in place. A pothole knocked off t’ tracking, so we’ve had to brace. Yet some fans still think relegation’s staring us in t’ face. All, day, long. The wheels on the bus has tyres with dubious tread. Two have bald spots, one’s a remould, one best left unsaid. Some fans are just the same (mebbe tapped in th’ ‘ead?). Aye, all, day, long…

Ed Bazeley:

Three defeats in the last four games, and two in a row, is far from ideal form for Wigan Athletic. But it's hardly time to ring the panic bells either, as the story of Latics' season has been that, with every good run of form, a bad run has never been far away. Realistically, that's probably where we should be given the squad we have compiled of Academy graduates, free signings, loanees and very few senior players compared to most of our opponents. Even without the eight-point deduction, we would still be in mid-table, given our patchy form. But the fact the 'Tics are up in 14th despite the deduction shows how good we can be and, while we are only six points clear of the relegation zone, that is not a true representation of where we are as a team. I find Shaun Maloney's comments regarding the side's mentality during Tuesday's defeat to Oxford very interesting. It is good to see the gaffer take responsibility for that, and to see him speak with the kind of honesty we probably lacked under Kolo Toure, who said the 'margins are fine' after Latics lost 4-1 on multiple occasions during his short tenure. There were still some positives to take from Oxford, though, as it is no easy feat to score two goals away from home at a play-off chasing side. But it's also not really acceptable to concede four goals against anyone in this league. It was good to see a continuation of Jordan Jones' good form, though, while Thelo Aasgaard once again proved he is capable of scoring all kinds of goals. Shrewsbury will pose a different kind of challenge to that of Oxford, but there's no reason why we can't get the double over them and earn bragging rights over former 'Tics Chey Dunkley and Tom Bayliss.

Sean Livesey:

What a disappointing week. After the highs of Peterborough and the progress made after Christmas, with only two defeats since Boxing Day - and one of those being the FA Cup exit against Manchester United. We were poor in the first half against Exeter but, up until their opening goal, we looked as though we could run away with it as we had at Peterborough the week previous. Unfortunately that goal, as a result of a wicked deflection, knocked the stuffing out of us. Worse was to come in the second half as we fell further behind to, you guessed it, another bad deflection. Credit to the lads, they fought to get back into the game, and probably should have earned a point. Charlie Kelman’s opening goal was well taken and, despite the criticism from some quarters when he signed, he looks an exciting player. Oxford offered an opportunity to get back to winning ways, and once again one Latics looked like taking, especially when we went ahead in the first half. Kelman once again involved in the goal, providing an assist for Jordan Jones. A goal in the fourth minute of injury time for Oxford once again led to heads dropping, and in truth we never really recovered, conceding three poor goals in the second half, with another two of those being the result of deflections. I’m unsure if the introductions of Charlie Goode and, to a lesser extent, Luke Chambers have changed things from a defensive point of view. I’d be interested to know why Liam Morrison has missed out recently, as his partnership with Charlie Hughes seemed to be one of the big positives this season. Goode is clearly a good (see what I did there) player, but I think his introduction has upset the balance of the defence. Part of football is luck, and in the last two games we’ve had none. But also they say you create your own luck, and we’ve been nowhere near good enough to create our own. But this is to be expected, without the deduction (yes I know we can’t change it) we would be in 10th place, slap bang in the middle. That represents the mid-table finish we all supposedly craved at the start of the season. There’s clearly a lot to work on and, with a run of winnable fixtures coming up, I’m hoping the lads can get back on track soon, preferably with a big away following heading down to Shrewsbury on Saturday. It’s going to be different from the last time we headed down to Shropshire, but I’m sure a win will help to make it an enjoyable trip. A word to the club, by the way, who’ve had a number of knocks and criticisms this season. Our son, James, celebrated his birthday last weekend, and was one of the mascots on Saturday against Exeter, and the whole experience was top notch. Lots of hardworking staff in various areas of the club trying to make everyone’s experience as good as it could possibly be. We as a fanbase are quick to knock the club when things aren’t right, so it’s only fair we praise them when they do get it right. The same goes for the Cheltenham tickets launched this week - £15 for adults and £10 for young adults and senior citizens is fantastic value, not to mention £1 a kids during half-term. It’s a shame it’s not a Saturday match, but we’ve had success under the lights this season, so let’s hope a Friday under the lights can get a few more hooked.